200th Episode (Part 2)

On 30th of November 2021, we had a 2-hour Live Podcast Episode for the 200th episode of The Effective Statistician Podcast! It was streamed into LinkedIn.

In this episode, we invited the guest speakers from the Top 20 Most Downloaded Podcast Episodes to share the most important lessons.

We also invited long-time listeners to share their success stories based on the learnings from the podcast.

Watch the live video recording: https://theeffectivestatistician.com/200th-episode/

Audio Recording – Part 1

Moderators

Alexander Schacht
Executive VP Of Launch And Commercialisation Data Sciences at Veramed

He received my PhD in biostatistics from the University of Göttingen in Germany. I have authored more than 70 scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and regularly speak at international conferences – both statistical ones like Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI) and medical ones like the European Dermatology Congress (EADV).

In his 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I focused on late-phase work. I’m leading a team of highly capable statisticians at a major pharmaceutical company. His team collaborates with a diverse set of people like physicians, marketeers, economists and many more. They leverage my leadership insights to influence widely across the business.

In addition, he serves on the board of directors of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI) as Chairman of the Communications Committee.

Benjamin Piske
Senior Director, Biostatistics at Cytel

He got interested in statistics during my studies of mathematics at the university of Göttingen when he attended courses of statistics at the department of medical statistics. Focusing on non-parametric statistics, he completed my MSc in 2003 and continued to work at the department until starting with a global CRO in April 2004. He started as biostatistician in the phase IIIb/IV environment and worked on interventional and non-interventional late phase trials, commercialization work, publication / presentation support, registries and investigator driven trials in several therapeutic areas – mainly oncology, hematology and neurology – using a broad range of statistical methods. During the later stages of his career I also worked on phase II and phase III trials as well as submissions.

In 2008 he took over line management responsibility for a primarily remote team, and since then developed more and more into a senior position. He’s primarily working office based in our office in Berlin, Germany.

Besides the challenging job and the not less challenging family responsibilities with having 4 children, he loves to travel, occasionally play squash, but more frequently record podcast episodes with Alexander .

Sam Gardner
Senior Product Manager for Health and Life Sciences at JMP

He holds a BS in Mathematics and Chemistry from Purdue University, a MS in Mathematics from Creighton University, and a MS in Statistics from the University of Kentucky.

He has held numerous roles in his career. Right out of college, he earned a commission as an officer in the United States Air Force, and for 12 years, he worked as a military scientific analyst. He was also a member of the faculty at the Air Force Institute of Technology during his part of his service, where he taught statistics and experimental design to fellow officers in the graduate engineering, science, and logistics programs.

After his military service, Sam joined Eli Lilly and Company and worked in research and development and manufacturing as a statistician and as a process chemist. He later made a career transition to the SAS Institute, where was a technical expert in the JMP Division, and that role gave him a broad exposure to hundreds of companies that are using statistics to solve business problems. He returned to Eli Lilly in the Advanced Analytics group, focusing on the application of predictive modeling in support of sales and marketing.  He then moved back into research and development at Elanco Animal Health. He spent a year doing independent consulting, and then returned to JMP as a Senior Product Manager, focusing on the needs of customers in the Health and Life Sciences Industry.

Sam is also a volunteer member of the US Pharmacopoeia’s Statistics Expert Committee.

Special Guests

Chris Miller

Chris Miller 
Vice President of Biometrics for Late-Stage Respiratory & Inflammation at AstraZeneca R&D in Gaithersburg, MD. 

He has participated actively in and led multi-national statistical and programming teams in the development and commercialization of a range of medicines, particularly in the areas of respiratory disease and inflammation.  His interests include Patient Reported Outcomes and advancing the science of developing medicines through the use of new technologies, such as Digital & Wearables, Data Science and Information Science.  Chris has held several leadership positions at AstraZeneca since joining the company in 1993, including appointments in Biostatistics, R&D Strategy, Regulatory Affairs, and Health Economics & Outcomes Research.  Previously, he served as a Biostatistician with the Neurosciences Venture at Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL).  He is a graduate of Loyola College in Maryland with a BS in Mathematical Sciences and Computer Science.  He received a Master’s Degree in Statistics with a minor in Mathematics from North Carolina State University. 

Paolo Eusebi

Paolo Eusebi
Contract Statistician

Statistician with broad experience in all aspects of biostatistics, epidemiology and health services evaluation.
Interested in consulting offers.

Specialties: Data management, data analysis, research projects.
Knowledge of main statistical software packages such as SAS, STATA and R. 

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JMP Software is proud to support the 200th episode of The Effective Statistician. 

JMP data analysis software empowers some of the world’s largest and most innovative pharmaceutical and biotech companies to explore process and lab data, understand sources of process variation, learn more from root-cause investigations and optimize processes and experimental design – all without learning to code. 

www.jmp.com/pharma

Guest Speakers‘ Bio

Alberto Cairo

Alberto Cairo
Knight Chair in Visual Journalism
Podcast Episode: COVID-19 and how charts lie

Alberto Cairo is a journalist and designer, and the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the School of Communication of the University of Miami (UM). He is also the director of the visualization program at UM’s Center for Computational Science. He has been head of information graphics at media publications in Spain and Brazil. 

The author of several textbooks, Cairo currently consults with companies and institutions like Google and the Congressional Budget Office, and has provided visualization training to the European Union, Eurostat, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Army National Guard, and many others. He lives in Miami, Florida.

Read more about Alberto Cairo
Read a long-form profile at Microsoft News

Stephen Pyke

Stephen Pyke
EVP Clinical Data & Digital Services at Parexel
Podcast Episode: Problems for statisticians to take on

Steve is SVP, Development DDA (Digital, Data & Analytics), a newly created role with accountability to deliver enhanced productivity and efficiency across Development by leveraging technology, data and advanced analytics.  Steve trained as a statistician, first joining the pharmaceutical industry in 1996, since when he has held various leadership roles, mainly in Clinical Development.  Steve began his career in academia (NIMR, LSHTM) where he held research and teaching positions.  He has served in a number of honorary professional positions, including: Chair, PSI (2009-11); Vice President, RSS (2013-2016); Chair, CDISC (2018); Advisory Board, Mathematics in Education & Industry (2017-present).  Steve studied Mathematics and Statistics at, respectively, University of York and Imperial College, London.

Frank Konietschke

Frank Konietschke
Non-parametric Professor at Charitee in Berlin
Podcast Episode: Non-parametric analyses – much more than just the Wilcoxon test!

Frank has done extensive research on methodological developments in nonparametric statistics including ranking procedures and resampling methods for various designs and models. His results are published in numerous publications in various journals including two papers in  “the highest-quality journal” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B. Recently, he published a book on nonparametric statistics the Springer Series in Statistics. He lectured and taught nonparametric statistics on almost every continent and has been invited speaker at about 80 different universities, companies and research institutions. Currently, he is professor of Statistics at the Charite Berlin, where he leads a research group working on the development and application of statistical methods of translation and early clinical trials.

Diana Stuart

Diana Stuart
Senior Manager, Programming at Veramed
Podcast Episode: Plotting your career and preparing the terrain

Diana has been programming in SAS since 1996, moving from banking to the pharmaceutical industry in 1998. Her experience includes ten years as an independent contractor and involved working for a number of pharmaceutical companies with a significant global presence. She is an experienced line manager who has a passion for the professional development of programmers and statisticians.

Leveraging 20 years of programming expertise across the pharmaceutical sector, Diana is one of the critical success factors behind the Veramed Graduate Training Programme, which she set up and coordinates each year. Alongside this challenging role, Diana supports employee engagement activities, ensures consistency in approach and advises on line management styles to foster and encourage valued contributions across the company as a whole.

Diana has been actively involved with Pharmaceutical Users Software Exchange (PHUSE) since 2009, editing and contributing to the PHUSE quarterly newsletter and more recently contributing to the PHUSE blogs, as well as active participation in the EU conference across the Professional Development, Industry Starters, University Day and Poster streams. In 2018, Diana was honoured to be made a Lifetime Honorary Member of receive a Lifetime achievement for PHUSE for her significant contribution to the organisation over a number of years.

Mattt Jones

Emma Jones

Matt and Emma Jones
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, Statistics at Veramed
Podcast Episode: The Story of Veramed – love and statistics

Matthew’s responsibilities include the provision of strategic direction and operational leadership to the company. He also provides oversight and management for the delivery of key projects.

He began his pharmaceutical career in SAS programming with Oxford Pharmaceutical Sciences (now Quanticate), where he honed his technical skills through various positions of ascending seniority. He subsequently worked in a variety of freelance and permanent programming positions across the industry for both CRO and large Pharma, and developed a deep working knowledge of several different outsourcing models.

He holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Nottingham (1999) and an executive MBA from Cranfield University (2006).

Emma is responsible for enabling the Veramed Biostatistics team to achieve the highest levels of quality from consultancy to reporting. Emma continues to provide statistical consultancy to clients to maintain her statistical acumen.

She has a wealth of experience in vendor oversight, statistical consultancy and of clinical statistical analysis gained from a variety of leading global pharmaceutical companies. She has knowledge in both technical and non-technical aspects of study design and statistical analysis across clinical studies from Phase I-III and multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, respiratory and immunology.

She holds a PhD in Statistics and is an active member of Statisticians in Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI). Emma was the Conference Chair for the 2015 and 2016 annual conference in London and Berlin, respectively.

Daniel Saure

Daniel Saure
Principal Clinical Data Scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim
Podcast Episode: Everything you need to know about matching adjusted indirect comparisons

He is currently the Principal Clinical Data Scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim for HTA in all therapeutic areas.

Below is his past achievements and positions:

  • 2012: M.Sc. Mathematics with minor International Economics, Johannes-Gutenberg-University of Mainz
  • 2012-2016: Institute of Medical Biometry and Informatics Heidelberg, Working group “Systematic reviews & meta-analyses”
  • 2016: PhD Medical Biometry on sequential meta-analyses
  • 2016-2021: Research Scientist at Eli Lilly & Company, global go-to person for Medical Affairs (MA), Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Real World Evidence (RWE) in Dermatology
Karim Malki

Karim Malki
Senior Director, Head of Biomakers and Predictive Analytics at UCB
Podcast Episode: Impact of AI on Clinical Development

He is a Senior Director, Head of Biomakers and Predictive Analytics at UCB.

Institute of Psychiatry
De Crespigny Park
London, United Kingdom

Department: MRC Centre for Social Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry
Profile: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/karim.malki.html

Ian Ratcliffe

Ian Ratcliffe
Statistician at Veramed
Podcast Episode: Working long hours – is it worth it?

Ian has been a statistician since 2012, having a variety of experience in post-marketing studies, a clinical trial unit, and multiple CROs. Ian has been working at Veramed for the last 18 months after spending 4 years at IQVIA. Additionally, Ian has a passion for the development of others managing a team of direct reports and contributing to Veramed’s Graduate Training Programme. Ian will also be hosting a brand new Veramed podcast which is launching before the end of 2021. He was also a member of the PSI CALC committee for two years, being part of the team that organised the PSI Medical Statistics Careers Event and the new MEDMathS event which took place a few weeks ago. Throughout his career, Ian has taken great care in ensuring that his work-life balance is maintained. Ian has a strong belief that one can have a successful career without having to sacrifice work-life balance.

Justine Rochon

Justine Rochon
Vice President, Global Head of Biostatistics and Data Sciences (BDS) at Boehringer Ingelheim
Podcast Episode: How to create win-win situations?

She is a psychologist and statistician with professional experience in both academia and pharmaceutical industry. From the very beginning of her career, which was almost 20 years ago, she served as lead trial and project statistician in multiple therapeutic areas (oncology, neurology, cardiovascular, metabolism, and obesity). Besides hands-on work in data management, programming and statistics, she provided strategic input to large healthcare interventions and clinical development programs. In addition, she was responsible for all statistical aspects of product maintenance and product optimization as well as market access activities. About 15 years ago, she has started taking management, director and leadership responsibilities. She also discovered her passion for new ways of working and organizational development meanwhile continuing to deliver accurate and valuable data science. Recently, she got certified as Scrum Product Owner and Agile Leader. This finally brought her in today’s position as Vice President, Global Head of Biostatistics and Data Sciences (BDS) at Boehringer Ingelheim. Justine’s group at BI consists of approx. 450 statisticians and data scientists located at five sites (in Germany, USA, China, and Japan). They provide the ideal combination of the business expert knowledge needed in clinical development with skills needed in data science. 

Besides her daily work in a pharmaceutical company, Justine shares her knowledge and professional experience from academia and industry with others. She is a lecturer of ‘Clinical Trials’ in the Master of Biostatistics at the University of Heidelberg as well as a lecturer of ‘Market Access and Health Economics’ in the Pharma MBA at the Goethe Business School and House of Pharma & Healthcare in Frankfurt, Germany. In addition, she has been active in the European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (EFSPI). Currently, she serves as EFSPI Council/Board member and is chair of EFSPI Statistics Leaders.

Kaspar Rufibach
Jan Beyersmann

Kaspar Rufibach and Jan Beyersmann
Expert Statistical Scientist in Roche Biostatistics and Survival and Event History Analysis
Podcast Episode: The analysis of adverse events done right – SAVVY

Kaspar Rufibach is an Expert Statistical Scientist in Roche’s Methods, Collaboration, and Outreach group and located in Basel.

He does methodological research, provides consulting to Roche statisticians and broader project teams, gives biostatistics trainings for statisticians and non-statisticians in- and externally, mentors students, and interacts with external partners in industry, regulatory agencies, and the academic community in various working groups and collaborations.

He has co-founded and co-leads the European special interest group “Estimands in oncology” (sponsored by PSI and EFSPI, which also has the status as an ASA scientific working group, a subsection of the ASA biopharmaceutical section) that currently has 39 members representing 23 companies, 3 continents, and several Health Authorities. The group works on various topics around estimands in oncology.

Kaspar’s research interests are methods to optimize study designs, advanced survival analysis, probability of success, estimands and causal inference, estimation of treatment effects in subgroups, and general nonparametric statistics. Before joining Roche, Kaspar received training and worked as a statistician at the Universities of Bern, Stanford, and Zurich.

More on the oncology estimand WG: http://www.oncoestimand.org
More on Kaspar: http://www.kasparrufibach.ch

John Beyersmann

Research Interest

Imi Dean

Imi Dean
Senior Data Scientist (RWD) | Epidemiologist | Oncology & Rare Disease
Podcast Episode: RWE demystified

He is an Epidemiologist and data scientist who is incredibly passionate about evidence-based medicine, elegant study design and scientifically robust analysis. He’s experienced in planning, conducting and analysing both real-world and interventional study data utilizing a wide variety of methods.

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