As this issue goes to press, we just wrapped the 17th edition of Contract Pharma’s “Contracting and Outsourcing Conference and Tabletop Exhibition,” the outsourcing industry’s premier “speed dating” event hooking up sponsors and service providers. Held in New Brunswick, NJ, from Sept. 27-28, it was again a huge success. While the upstairs was jamming with attendees across the sold-out exhibit hall, the downstairs conference portion of the event was packed as well throughout the day and a half of sessions.

Contract Pharma’s resident Clinically Speaking columnist, futurist, prognosticator, and delver of fortune cookie wisdom, Ben Locwin, kicked the day off with his Keynote on “Pharma Future Trends.” With a talk that covered everything from paranormal beliefs, to concepts of time and how it affects our past, present and future selves, Ben challenged the audience to “think” about how we actually think. And as business people and/or scientists how we “strategically” plan our days, weeks, months and years without really being able to predict anything.

It was a bit of a mind bender, and judging by word of mouth reactions, a big hit with the audience. In this month’s column Ben addresses some of the themes he covered during his talk, which is available online at ContractPharma.com for those of you interested in taking a closer look.

After Ben’s Keynote, the audience heard from Brian Hasselbalch, the acting deputy director for the office of policy for pharmaceutical quality at FDA/CDER/OPQ. Brian talked about “Mutual Recognition of Inspections,” but more importantly, his presence marked the second year in a row we’ve had a CDER rep make the trip up from D.C. to address our audience; a clear indication the Agency recognizes the growing importance the outsourcing and contract services sector plays in today’s pharma supply chain.

If you were unable to attend and are interested in the sessions I mentioned here, they are available at ContractPharma.com in addition to other sessions that covered: Pfizer’s external drug product planning and management (Paul McGuirk); CMO and CDMO market analysis (Dave Windley); cGXP data integrity and suppliers (John Avellanet); quality metrics guidance (Donna Gulbinski); FDA investigator insights (Jogy George); and drug development and partnerships with CDMOs (Jim Spavins).

Thank you again to all the attendees and exhibitors who made the event another great success. You can see photos online and a recap will be published next month in the November/December print edition.

A final thanks to all the staff at Contract Pharma and Rodman Media who help to plan and pull off this event every year. It’s a big undertaking and while we joke around the office that beginning the middle of January every year we start planning “the wedding,” we realize how important finding the right partner is to success and take pride in hopefully helping your business efforts to that end. 

Hope to see everyone again next year! It’s never too early to mark your calendars—Sept. 26-27, same place, same time!


Tim Wright, Editor
twright@rodmanmedia.com