East Carolina U Pharma Conference: the meeting right before the big US shutdown...
Michael Dong
Subject matter expert in HPLC, CMC, and pharm analysis. PhD in analytical chemistry. Author of bestseller HPLC book and 130 articles.
The East Carolina University (ECU) Pharma Conference (Mar 10-11, 2020) will be known as the conference that narrowly squeezed by right before the semi-shutdown of the US when President Trump declared a national state of emergency on Mar 13.
I was invited by Jack Pender of ECU to present three 45-min long seminars on method development and validation. I readily accepted the invite since it was referred by Alan Potts of Thermo Patheon who I knew when he was at Bayer CT and later at USP Rockville.
I woke up early at 5 am on Monday morning and drove 70 mile to Newark Airport to catch a 10 am flight to Raleigh-Durham airport. I met Jane Weitzel, the other speaker from Canada and we drove 90 miles from the airport to Greenville N.C. We enjoyed a sumptous dinner with Jack, Alan and several speakers at a small Italian restaurant that evening.
We spent the next two days attending plenary sessions, advanced seminars with three parallel tracks, and speaking with the vendor's reps. The attendance was about 80 with about 20 last-minute cancellations due to the travel restrictions imposed by several companies. We joined a group after the Tuesday program at the Uptown Microbrewery for an evening of sampling local beers and networking. The full agenda is available from this link below.
https://chemistry.ecu.edu/pharm-center/pharma-conference/
I returned home on Friday early afternoon and found the country in a semi-shutdown with many school closings and cancellations of almost all public events. I went grocery shopping the next day and experienced one of most hectic pandemonia at Costco.
I was glad I was able to attend Pittcon Chicago last week and this ECU pharma conference where I learned much from the speakers and met a number of very friendly colleagues at Thermo Patheon, Mayne Pharma, CMP pharma, ECU, and other companies. My trip to ACS National meeting in Philadelphia was cancelled and so is my personal trip to Disney World with the kids.
Life will never be the same after the big US shutdown in the spring of 2020 to contain the effect of the spreading COVID-19. Hopefully, the nation and the world will emerge stronger and with more respect for mother nature after we survive this calamity.
Subject matter expert in HPLC, CMC, and pharm analysis. PhD in analytical chemistry. Author of bestseller HPLC book and 130 articles.
4 年looking back, we were incredibly lucky not to have a super spreader at the conference.
Associate Director at GSK
4 年Nice summary. I’m glad you made it home safely and are feeling well. You have inspired me to write-up Pittcon experience :-)
Quality Assurance Project Lead at Thermo Fisher Scientific
5 年It was a great conference and i am glad i was part of it.
Director of Pharmaceutical Training and Laboratory Services, East Carolina University
5 年So far so good. Glad we were able to get it in. Almost all of our participants were local. It was a good event for the pharma community of eastern NC.
Subject matter expert in HPLC, CMC, and pharm analysis. PhD in analytical chemistry. Author of bestseller HPLC book and 130 articles.
5 年I think the mood of the country changed drastically on Wednesday when WHO announced the pandemics and Trump declared a national state of emergency.? If the conference was scheduled a few days later, it would have been canceled according to Jack Pender, the organizer.? I personally was glad that both the ECU and the Pittcon were not canceled. ? MWD