K E E P I N G
Y O U
THE TOPRA NE WSLE T TER – KEEPING MEMBERS IN TOUCH
Prize presentation In July, TOPRA Executive Director, Lynda Wight attended the graduation ceremony of the Welsh School of Pharmacy (Cardiff University) to present a prize on behalf of TOPRA for the best overall performance in clinical and pharmacy practice throughout the MPharm course. The winner in 2011 was Kate Weston.
S EPTEM B ER 2011
Reflections on a busy year Zubair Hussain Message from the President It seems incredible to think that I took office last October at the Annual Review meeting held as part of the London Symposium and I am already writing my final column for InTouch as President of TOPRA. By the time you read this, elections will have closed and we will know who will make up the new TOPRA Board from October 2011 under our new President Dr David Jefferys. At the Annual Review meeting on 8 September I will report in detail on our successes and challenges – please come along if you can. Although the time seems to have flown by, when I reflect on the achievements in the past year, I am amazed at what has been accomplished. For me the year started on a high with our Symposium in London with the MHRA, with its record-breaking attendance, and our very first TOPRA Awards celebration. I am looking forward to the 2011 Symposium in Rome with the co-operation of the Italian agency, AIFA, and a repeat of the Awards later in the year in London. Both these events bring great credit to TOPRA and, most importantly, to the profession of Regulatory Affairs and its role in successful product development. I hope I will see many of you at either or both of these events.
The process to set up ‘TOPRA In…’ groups across Europe and in North America has moved forward by leaps and bounds in 2011 and my hope is that more TOPRA members will be actively engaged with us through these local groups and gain added benefit of membership by being involved. I have also been impressed by the success of our on-line ‘Basics’ training course, which has expanded our training offering to more people across the globe. I will derive great pleasure from the enrolment of our first PhD student this year. As President I have been pleased that we have continued to develop our relationships with agencies, with the Commission, trade bodies and other professional organisations and so our external profile has continued to be high. However, I am also pleased that this year we have looked at our internal processes as well. In the past year we have refined our strategic planning and I have followed the lead of previous Presidents by reporting on our
progress to the entire membership in the pages of this newsletter. We have developed a Statement of Values for all members to sign up to in 2012 and we have looked more closely at how we are organised and managed. In the coming months more information on the structure of TOPRA, its staff and committees will be made available to all members so that the breadth of our activities and the amazing diversity of what we are doing ‘behind the scenes’ can be appreciated more fully. I would love to hear from any member who has comments and ideas on how we can continue to grow and improve this organisation of which I think we can be justifiably proud. I would like to thank my fellow Board members for all their help and support in the last year. It has been a pleasure to serve as your President and I look forward to continuing as Past-President in the next session.
Board elections The invitation to all TOPRA members to vote for their Board representatives was issued at the beginning of August and, at the time of writing, votes were coming in daily. The results will be announced at the TOPRA Annual Review Meeting on 8 September at the TOPRA offices and we hope many members will be there to hear about TOPRA’s successes in the past year and plans for the future. The composition of the new Board will then appear on the website and in the next edition of InTouch.