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51th
Annual General Meeting of the P-D-R 2009
The Pharma Documentation Ring (P-D-R) held its 51st Annual General
Meeting (AGM) in Leesburg, Virginia, USA from the 22nd – 25th September
2009. The P-D-R is an association whose members represent the scientific
information departments of the leading international R&D-based
pharmaceutical corporations. There was one new corporate member
(Takeda) added during the previous 12 months. The 24 member companies
continue to account for approximately 60% of the total global turnover
of
ethical drugs (approximately $500 billion); by far the majority of the
top 20
global pharmaceutical companies are P-D-R members.
Thirty-three delegates attended this year’s meeting, which was co-hosted
by
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck & Co. In addition, there were guest
speakers
from Chemical Abstracts Service and Elsevier. The New England Journal
of
Medicine and the Copyright Clearance Center hosted an enjoyable informal
reception for the delegates prior to the official opening of the meeting.
Henning Nielsen (Novo Nordisk), President of the P-D-R, in his opening
remarks stated that the global financial crisis is impacting the pharmaceutical
industry less than the apparent innovation crisis and the inherent
challenges
facing the industry in the form of patent expiries, regulatory uncertainty,
increased pressures on pricing, and mergers. Whether the reason is
the
financial crisis or innovation gap it is causing a lot of changes in
the industry.
The themes of this year’s meeting addressed the transformations
taking place
within the pharmaceutical industry. These themes included: social media,
Information Management roles and responsibilities, networked business
models, IM strategies and the Ideal Corporate Information Center.
As in previous years, two of the principal highlights of the meeting
were the
discussions on two strategic topics that had been identified prior
to the
meeting. The two selected topics for 2009 were
• Hot Topics
• IM Strategies in a Changing Pharma Environment
The “Hot Topics” session drew its inspiration from the “unconference” format
in that the session ideas were generated by the attendees and represented
topics that were of immediate and/or current interest to them. They included
“
The IM Organization of the Future”, “Approaches to Reducing
Content
Spend”, “Marketing the IM Function”, “Positioning
Information Professionals
for the Future”, and “Information Services-related Metrics.”
The “IM Strategies” session included presentations by Elsevier
and ACS
which highlighted the successes they have had using social media in
their
businesses. Rafael Sidi, of Elsevier, described how Twitter is affecting
Elsevier’s business and how they are using it to better support
their
customers. He presented a vision of a future information platform which
is
open and able to provide actionable information. Alex Kim, of ACS,
highlighted some of the successes they have been having incorporating
social
media and web 2.0 features into their websites and journals.
The second half of the “IM Strategies” session featured a
presentation by Dee
Mater, (Abbott) who gave a report of a Cost and Value survey which
sought to
understand the ROI of the Information Center. Craig Funt (Bristol-Myers
Squibb) then presented on BMS’ evolving networked business model
and how
the IM function was adapting in support of it.
Each of the P-D-R topic groups organized a portion of the agenda which
highlighted areas of interest within that group. The Library Affairs
and
Copyright topic group brought forth a draft version of a “Blueprint
for an Ideal
Corporate Information Center (ICIC) and How to Measure its Return on
Investment.” The paper looks at the functions of the ICIC and its
place within
the corporation as well as presenting best and worst case examples.
After
soliciting feedback from the members, the group plans to finalize and
submit
the paper for publication. Other topics presented ranged from Clinical
Trial
and Product Literature databases to use of SharePoint within companies
to
reviews of chemical information sources.
An ongoing feature of the P-D-R AGM is the review of information-related
developments within the member companies over the previous twelve
months. Common themes that emerged this year were the use of SharePoint
as an enterprise platform, portfolio-level evaluations of content driven
by
changing business models, newly available products and the need to
cut or
balance budgets.
At the end of the meeting, the existing P-D-R Board was re-elected
for a
period of two years starting in January 2010: Henning Nielsen (Novo
Nordisk)
will continue as president, and Lou Ann Di Nallo (BMS), Claudia Körner
(Bayer HealthCare), and Matthias Staab (Sanofi-Aventis) will continue
in their
respective positions. The 52nd P-D-R AGM will be held in Konstanz,
Germany from September 28th – October 1st, 2010 and will be hosted
by
Nycomed.
The P-D-R web site can be found at http://www.p-d-r.com.
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