Oxford PharmaGenesis Commercial Director Dr Richard White was Chairman of the 16th Annual Meeting of The International Publication Planning Association (TIPPA), held in San Diego, USA on 21–22 February 2017, and provides his insights on the conference.
“It was a pleasure and a privilege to chair this year’s TIPPA conference. When I first attended TIPPA 3 years ago, I was struck by how much more open and candid the discussions were, compared with any other conference that I had previously attended. A high proportion of attendees are senior pharma publications managers, and it was wonderful to see everyone sharing their views and experiences, and entering into genuinely constructive discussions and debates with their counterparts in other companies. It is a source of great pride to me that this collaborative, community spirit continued throughout this year’s conference.
The agenda was wide-ranging and covered all of the key issues in contemporary publications planning and execution. In my initial Chairman’s Address, I wanted to remind everyone of the fundamental importance of ethical and transparent publications practice, and to instil in all of us pride in the advances we have made in our profession. This message was reinforced time and again during subsequent sessions, which highlighted the importance of publications professionals in bringing transparency to issues such as authorship, the role of the medical writer, and approaches to publications strategy at different stages of a product life cycle and for different technologies (such as medical devices and diagnostics).
The field of publications is evolving rapidly, and some of the most illuminating discussions were stimulated by sessions on the role of social media and multichannel strategies to enhance publications uptake, and the importance of patient lay summaries (or plain language summaries) in bringing clinical data to wider audiences. These pose questions in terms of the legal issues around communicating directly with patients, but progress seems inexorable – I am confident that TIPPA’s 17th Annual Meeting will include case studies on how these strategies have been applied successfully by the industry, and I look forward to hearing them (and perhaps presenting them)!”
Oxford PharmaGenesis thanks all of the presenters and delegates for their tremendous contribution to this year’s TIPPA conference. We also thank Christine Marez, Jennifer Clemence and all of the team at Healthcare Education Associates for their great support in organizing and managing the logistics of another highly successful event, and look forward to the 2018 rendition.
