Welcome to the Pistoia Alliance July 2024 Newsletter

Philadelphia Conference: Ideation. Collaboration. Activation. November 12 & 13, 2024

We are excited about bringing the Pistoia Alliance’s annual US conference to Philadelphia this year. This is an opportunity to make new connections and gain insight into the biggest issues impacting global life sciences R&D from industry thought-leaders. We would like to ask all of our members to reach out to colleagues in the local vicinity and invite them to join us for two days of inspiring presentations, workshops, collaboration and networking. For further details please contact Becky Upton and John Wise

Register Today

New US Life Science Informatics Forum

Following the success of our UK and now European Life Science Informatics Forum, last month we held our inaugural US forum in Philadelphia. Hosted by EPAM SolutionsHub and sponsored by SEMA 3D CAD/CAM Software , the forum brought together members from GSK, Merck, AbbVie and J&J, as well as senior executives from local emerging startups. The focus was emerging AI use cases and how to acknowledge and mitigate risk, in particular potential regulatory risk. Speakers included Dimitrios Agrafiotis (former Novartis CIO), Dr Matthew Clark, Ability Biologics and Matt Van Italie.

Our next US forums will be held in Philadelphia and Boston in Q3. If you are interested in attending a future event, or joining the US LinkedIn group, please apply here or contact Tim Hoctor or Stephanie Pearson

Quantum Computing Community: New Webinar Series

The Pistoia Alliance Quantum Computing Community of Interest is dedicated to exploring the rapidly evolving field of quantum computing and its transformative potential for the pharmaceutical industry. In the current landscape, AI, ML, and generative AI dominate the spotlight, often overshadowing advancements in quantum computing. This raises several pertinent questions:

• Does the rise of LLMs diminish the potential benefits of quantum computing for pharma?
• Can some tasks previously envisioned for quantum computing be handled by LLMs?
• How can the pharmaceutical industry integrate quantum computing into its problem-solving approaches?
• Does the industry possess the necessary skills to embrace this quantum revolution?

To address these crucial questions and more, we are hosting a series of three webinars under the theme “Quantum Computing in Life Science R&D: Where Are We, Where Are We Going, When Will We Get There?”.

Register and catch up on those you have already missed here.

Webinars, Events & Training  

Don’t forget to visit our events page to discover the many different events the Pistoia Alliance and its members are hosting.

Projects & Communities 

Lab of the Future: New Steering Committee

We are pleased to announce the forming of a Lab of the Future Steering Committee who will meet for the first time together in September.

The Steering Committee will guide the strategic direction of our Lab of the Future Community which provides a platform to exchange ideas and best practices and to develop new collaborative projects that will help drive forwards the labs of the future. We have four companies committed so far and are still looking for more companies to join the steering committee. Full details will be announced at Lab of the Future . Get touch with Anca Maria Ciobanu to get involved.

Take part in our 2024 Lab of the Future Survey

We want to hear your views on what technologies and skills will enable innovation and collaboration in the lab of the future. Join us at the Lab of the Future Congress Europe and the Pistoia Alliance Philadelphia Conference where we will unveil the findings and examine what they mean for life science professionals.  Take our 5 minute survey here.

New ideas from our AI/ML Community

Our AI community has been busy putting forward and exploring a number of new project ideas including AI in regulatory compliance with one key use case focusing on how to validate AI computer systems within 21CFR11 requirements.

Other ideas include:

• Can we use AI systems to automatically generate regulatory documents?
• How about using AI to plan the pharmaceutical product strategy?
• How we can address information security in AI challenges;
• Benchmarking for AI models examining what are the most significant uses cases in our industry where the AI and ML models lack established test cases.

We are looking for members to come forward and support any of these ideas by providing expertise and funding - please contact Vladimir Makarov

Standard API protocol for ontology/terminology lookup

We are looking for funding for a new project idea put forward by SciBite. Data capture systems, such as ELNs and LIMS provided by external vendors have limited API support for integrating with external Ontology Management Systems (OMS). The Standard API protocol for ontology/terminology lookup project aims to create a standard API interface for a set of common operations relating to ontology/terminology lookup. This will benefit organizations that have invested in external systems for capturing data and ontology management. At present these systems don’t talk to each other. Easing the integration of these systems via a common API protocol will enable organizations to benefit from each system without having to develop and maintain complicated and costly middleware. To help drive this project forwards contact: J Christian Baber .

New Community of Experts: Change Management Enabling Digital Transformation

We are looking to establish a new community of experts to help organizations maximize their investments in digital transformation. The community will share success factors, tools and resources that have led to more successful transformations. When change management is carried effectively, employees are more engaged in the journey and the project is more likely to be delivered on time and on budget. If you are interested in sharing your experiences and helping to evaluate new ideas and resources and would like to get involved in and help fund this community, please contact Thierry Escudier .

Published Content From Pistoia Alliance Members

Are you a member or sponsor of the Pistoia Alliance and would like your content to be featured? Connect with Catherine Maskell and Tanya Randall.