Richard Zink: Reflections on Volunteering with the Biopharmaceutical Section

Richard Zink

It’s hard to believe nearly five years have passed since serving as the 2019 chair of the Biopharmaceutical Section. I’m happy to see the section is thriving and as busy as ever educating our members and providing them opportunities to collaborate with their peers.

Chair was a role I served toward the end of an active 10+ years with the section. Like many journeys, this one began small and grew over time as I took on more responsibility. To begin, I was a frequent member, starting in 2012, of the organizing committee of the then-called FDA-Industry Statistics Workshop. In other words, I submitted session proposals and worked to convince other organizing committee members, including members of the workshop steering committee, that my proposals were worthwhile and should be selected for the final program.

Despite not being a member of the steering committee, these journeys to Rockville, Maryland, to participate in the organizing committee meetings gave me a basic understanding of the inner workings of the workshop. I found it fascinating.

Responding to a call for volunteers at one of these meetings, I began my involvement with the section podcast that lasted until 2022. These initial footholds with the workshop organizing committee meetings and podcast led to other opportunities, and these opportunities generally started off with “we need a volunteer to … .”

Eventually, participating in organizing committee meetings allowed me to meet numerous steering committee members, which gave me the opportunity to join the workshop steering committee in 2014. I guess I must have done a reasonable job on the steering committee, as I was recommended to serve as industry co-chair for the 2015 workshop. I continued to serve on the workshop organizing and steering committees until 2018, though I took more of a supporting role over time.

Podcasting was a wonderful opportunity to engage the larger biopharmaceutical community and allowed me to engage a significant portion of the biopharmaceutical steering committee: members of the Publications Committee. This committee, run by the publications officer, helped organize and lead activities surrounding the Biopharmaceutical Report, webinars, podcasts, webpage, and social media. Because I co-led a key effort of the publications committee, I was able to attend Biopharmaceutical Section steering committee meetings to provide updates on podcasts.

I enjoyed steering committee meetings, as I had an opportunity to hear about ongoing and upcoming activities within the section. For example, there was a push in 2013–2014 to organize scientific working groups. Given my research areas at the time, I became one of the charter members of the Safety Working Group in 2014, the first in a long line of scientific working groups for the section.

As time passed, I started thinking about potential opportunities to serve as a section officer. In 2016, I volunteered to become one of two candidates for publications officer. When the call came again two years later, I offered to become a candidate for section chair (and was somehow elected twice).

Section chair is an enormous three-year role shared by three individuals. Each year, the nature of the role changes, with the second year being the most visible. During the first year as chair-elect, you learn the responsibilities of becoming chair in the following year. In the second year as chair, you are responsible for organizing and leading the three section steering committee meetings. In the final year as past chair, your focus shifts to clean-up and documentation, most notably reviewing the manual of operations for accuracy and identifying a list of candidates for the upcoming year. The details for chair and other section roles are listed in the manual, which is posted on the section website.

My time on the steering committee as chair and publications officer lasted from 2016–2020, during which time I witnessed many important initiatives and much growth within the section. The steering committee continued to review and approve requests for new scientific working groups, which quickly grew in number. In turn, these scientific working groups generated valuable outputs such as manuscripts, webinars, short courses, and books. Notably, the section extended its reach by producing content for YouTube.

A workshop taskforce was convened to address many of the operational challenges that began to plague the workshop, now called the ASA Biopharmaceutical Section Regulatory-Industry Statistics Workshop. I commend the steering committee for making this difficult decision, since a lot of thought and investigation were undertaken by the taskforce and there was insufficient time for thorough discussion during steering committee meetings.

We also formed a 40th Anniversary Committee to begin preparing to celebrate our longevity in 2021 and established the Leadership in Practice Committee, which aims to offer training in practical leadership to members of the biopharmaceutical community.

While all these initiatives were important, I think the most notable undertaking during those years was instituting the scholarship award. To date, more than 24 students have been awarded for their research and leadership. The cash award allows students to attend the Joint Statistical Meetings so they can engage with other statisticians and data scientists about their research and pick up new ideas.

As my term as chair came to a close, the world underwent drastic changes due to COVID-19. While we had preliminary preparations in place, none of us could have anticipated how extensive or how long our virtual existence would become. For example, in the spring of 2019, we held the first fully virtual meeting of the steering committee. There were hiccups, but no one could have imagined we would be holding all our steering committee meetings—as well as entire conferences—virtually one year later. Further, due to the economic pressures of COVID, the owners of the Marriott Wardman Park building went bankrupt, robbing the workshop of its home for many years.

In some ways, the section was prepared for the loss of our meeting place. One of the taskforce’s responsibilities was to identify a larger space for the workshop since it had sold out for several years in a row and there was no space to grow.

And slowly, over the next two years, I completed my responsibilities for podcasting and the Safety Working Group and took a much-needed break. The time I spent contributing to the section and workshop was some of the greatest of my professional career, and I am grateful for the opportunities I had to serve the community and the trust others placed in me to serve it. I’m not completely retired, however. I hope to participate on the Leadership in Practice Committee soon.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Biopharmaceutical Section’s spring report.