August 2018

Going Visual

his month, enhance your reading experience via video interviews with key opinion leaders. These interviews are integrated into and complement articles in this issue summarizing sessions at the recent DIA 2018 Global Annual Meeting in Boston. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind opportunity to hear directly from the experts.

These interviews were conducted at the DIA 2018 Global Annual Meeting in Boston in June and included conversations with regulators, industry experts, academics, students, and, importantly, a young patient and his family who were keen to help others understand the regulatory and clinical trial process from the patient’s point of view.

Collectively, and with the accompanying articles on many additional topics, these conversations reflect some of the major themes and takeaways from this year’s DIA Global Annual Meeting, ranging from innovation to real world evidence, value-based assessment and contracting, biosimilar interchangeability, precision medicine, gene editing, EMA and FDA Town Halls, and pediatric trials. Additional video interviews will be posted in the weeks and months ahead, along with upcoming new podcast interviews that thousands of you have grown used to listening to/downloading over the years.

The rich and varied content of the DIA 2018 Global Annual Meeting attracted the largest number of participants in nearly a decade and reflected the diversity and urgency of interests in the product development ecosystem. Significantly, and for the first time, the Program included more than 30 individual sessions on Patient Engagement. This is no longer a “token topic”; it is now mainstream.

We invite you to read, view, and listen carefully as you open this issue and peek into what mattered and engaged us in Boston in June.