Oxford PharmaGenesis had a powerful presence at the 14th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) in National Harbor, MD, USA, April 30–May 2, 2018. Members of the Digital, Open Pharma, Value Demonstration and Patient Engagement practices all played an active role in the sessions, as well as presenting five research posters.
Chris Winchester, CEO of Oxford PharmaGenesis and Chair of the ISMPP Board of Trustees, remarked, “ISMPP is a key supporter of best practice in the industry, and we were delighted to make such wide-ranging contributions to this year’s meeting.”
In the Tuesday keynote session, which was organized by the Open Pharma team, bioRxiv co-founder Richard Sever presented the role of reprints in accelerating the communication of medical research. Brian Falcone, Executive Vice President of Oxford PharmaGenesis, moderated the subsequent panel discussion with Richard, Jon Druhan (AstraZeneca) and Joseph Solomon Ross (Yale School of Medicine). Brian observed that the “energy and passion of the panel and in the room really highlighted the interest in preprints for clinical work. Interesting times are ahead!”
Later that day, Heather Lang presented her ground-breaking research on the use of preprints by the pharmaceutical industry. “We were surprised that, even now, around 1% of preprints on bioRxiv have a top 50 pharma author,” she remarked.
The Open Pharma team also led the open access panel discussion on Wednesday, titled ‘Increasing speed, efficiency and transparency in medical publishing through open access’. This is a “really hot topic – everyone’s talking about it” according to LaVerne Mooney (Pfizer), who moderated the discussion among representatives of key stakeholders − Maria Alu (Columbia University Medical Center), Valerie Philippon (Shire) and David Sampson (ASCO). The Open Pharma mission to help the industry thrive in an era of increasingly open science stimulated some highly energetic discussions both on and off stage!
The Digital team facilitated two workshops on digital publication planning, both of which were filled to capacity. Martin Callaghan, Director of Digital Communications at Oxford PharmaGenesis, said: “It was clear that, more than ever, there’s so much potential for digital innovation in the publications space, and we’re seeing more and more of our clients adopting digital approaches. The key to success is still in selecting the right approach for the right objective, executing well and staying compliant.”
Another workshop, ‘Communicating product value: HEOR for the publication professional’, and a roundtable session were supported by the Value Demonstration Practice. Jake Willet, the Oxford PharmaGenesis Senior Consultant who co-facilitated the workshop, was extremely encouraged to see “so many publication professionals interested in learning more about HEOR, and how to work more effectively with their HEOR colleagues”.
Patient engagement with publications was another hot topic at this year’s ISMPP meeting. Sarah Griffiths of the Patient Engagement Practice at Oxford PharmaGenesis, who led a roundtable on the topic, said, “People are keen to get patients involved in publications, whether this is as authors or as reviewers. What has emerged from discussions at the ISMPP Annual Meeting is a clear need for guidelines on the best practice on how to do this.”
Later, Tom Rees, Communications Director at Oxford PharmaGenesis, co-presented to a packed session on lay summaries for biomedical journals. With open access becoming increasingly common, he emphasized the importance of ensuring that medical publication professionals consider the patient audience.
The new research projects presented by Oxford PharmaGenesis further supported the company’s position at the leading edge of developments in publications. Topics included digitally enhanced content, ORCID implementation, access restriction to commercially funded research, the effect of open access and article impact, and awareness of publication professional initiatives at the Peer Review Congress.
