Jing Huang
More than 250 statisticians and their colleagues in related fields gathered in Silicon Valley November 5–6, 2018, to attend the Bay Area Biotech-Pharma Statistics Workshop (BBSW 2018) and discuss cutting-edge statistical methodologies and best practices in the analytical field that will change patient care.
The theme of the workshop was “Innovation and Impact.” The Bay Area is a hotbed for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, with one of the largest clusters of statisticians. BBSW filled the need for a high-quality statistics conference by bringing the community closer and providing a venue for local statisticians, bioinformaticians, data scientists, and programmers to learn, interact, brainstorm, and network.
The workshop opened with a keynote by Lisa LaVange, 2018 ASA president. Her presentation focused on fostering statistical leaders and increasing their impact through day-to-day work. LaVange touched on her lifelong journey as a statistician working across industry, academia, and government. She shared with the audience important insights about how to be a great leader and encouraged the audience to step up to the plate since statisticians are well-trained on qualities a great leader should possess such as critical thinking and objectivity.
Following LaVange, Steven Shak—cofounder and CMO/CSO of Genomic Health—gave a talk titled “Technology Innovations in Health Care and Medicine.” He reviewed the recent evolution of breast cancer management and highlighted the importance of precision diagnostic tools to help patients avoid unnecessary treatments. Another focus was the value of productive collaboration across functions—how important it is for clinicians and senior management to listen to statisticians and include them from the inception of a project.
The afternoon program included an invited session on innovative trial design and a panel discussion on recently released ICH and regulatory guidance. During the dinner, Mingxiu Hu, senior vice president at Nektar Therapeutics, gave a banquet speech and shared his thoughts on how statisticians can drive strategic decisions to improve drug development efficiency.
The second day of the workshop began with a session on innovative technology and applications in clinical trials. Speakers in this session touched on how wearable devices and smartphones are actively changing our lifestyle and the way we collect data. Innovative data analysis and collection methods are even more important for handling such rapid changes.
A second session focused on machine learning and big data applications in drug and diagnostic development. Speakers from Genentech, Google, and Veracyte shared their experiences leveraging big data and the rapid development in machine learning, particularly deep learning, to help improve patient management.
Lunch on the second day included a roundtable discussion in which six experts in their respective fields led informative discussions with their groups. The afternoon invited session revealed successful examples in statistical innovation. Finally, the workshop ended with a panel discussion on innovation, impact, and leadership.
The workshop was hosted by DahShu, a nonprofit organization founded in 2015 to promote research and education in data science. It was cosponsored by industrial and professional organizations, including the ASA Biopharmaceutical Section and San Francisco Bay Area Chapter. More information about the conference can be found on the BBSW website.
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