Proceedings of the 34th DIA Annual Meeting: “Thinking Globally: Product Development,Registration,and Marketing in the New Millennium,” June 7–11,1998,Boston,Massachusetts *

Abstract

Held on June 7–11, 1998 in Boston, Massachusetts, the 34th DIA Annual Meeting attracted 6906 attendees, including the speakers. Its title, “Thinking Globally: Product Development, Registration and Marketing in the New Millennium,” reflected the wide variety of topics selected for the 251 sessions, 70 of which were chaired by Europeans. As a worldwide nonprofit organization, DIA has provided the opportunity to all actors involved in the history and life of drugs to exchange their views and openly discuss drug development issues. Both regulators and regulated from the various regions worldwide could take best advantage of this neutral, multidisciplinary worldwide effective DIA forum.

This 1998 DIA Annual Meeting program called upon multinational teams setting integrated sessions involving speakers from different geographic and scientific areas. The different areas of interest of this annual program were most frequently managed by track chairs working together and coming from various parts of the European, American, and Japanese regions, emphasizing the ambitious international span of the coordinating committee. For the first time ever, four tracks were dedicated to clinical issues. Forty-four sessions were devoted to general clinical issues and global development strategies regarding the major therapeutic areas.

Seven hundred seventy one speakers (ie, three speakers per session on average) representing 42 nationalities participated actively in the program. The European region was represented by 180 speakers from the European Commission, European Medicines Evaluation Agency/Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products (EMEA/CPMP), regulatory health authorities, and pharmaceutical industry. A large Japanese delegation from both the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the industry was present, with 15 speakers involved in this year's program. Nine hundred thirty exhibitors and 613 F&B badges also contributed to the convivial success of this worldwide event. Though not exhaustive, proceedings of important issues tackled during this gigantic meeting are reported below.