Virtual Conferences Observations

Chris Matheus, Global Life Sciences Alliance

2020, the year of the COVID-19/Protests/Riots/Presidential Election and the year the clinical research industry’s conferences went virtual. The noteworthiness of this made me think to jot down my observations.

I have been attending the annual Drug Information Association (DIA) convention since 1997. This conference typically has 5,000 – 8,000 attendees. As a virtual meeting there were approximately 1,500. Casual review of the list seemed led some of us to believe that those attendees were doing so for CE credits. Without the networking and events as an added part of the draw to attend, the result suggests ~1,500/year attend for CE and ~3,500 attend for networking, holding business meetings, etc.

Some things that I noted were:

• There was no FOCM and Zymewire Clinical Reconnections Networking event on Sunday night.
• I missed seeing everyone! Less business development and senior level industry people attended. Not seeing friends in person (this event is very much an industry reunion) and not getting to socialize with them makes it more difficult to maintain relationships.
• Seeing so few friends in the virtual exhibit hall (Thanks Adriana Grado, Cory Winters and Amy Zastawney for taking time to meet with me). Every year I make a point to walk the entire exhibit hall to make sure I see and catch up with as many people as I can and to see what new and innovative products and services are available.
• I didn’t stay out late (there was no virtual Transperfect party on Monday night and of course no other vendor parties of any kind).
• On the last day I wasn’t exhausted.
• Interestingly, the virtual face:to:face networking, I found resulted in better conversations and stronger connections. I attribute that to neither person looking over his/her shoulder at who else is walking down the hallway or getting tapped on the back by someone saying hi.

In October is the CNS Summit annual meeting. This has changed to a year-round community, allowing for more virtual educational events, sharing of information and collaboration. The networking platform within CNS Summit facilitates meetings throughout the year, no longer just during the 4 days of the conference. 

We in this industry are proud of the role we’re playing and demonstrating to the world the value, the need, and the method for discovering treatments for COVID-19. The need to utilize recent innovations in big data, AI, high throughput screening, and streamlining of cumbersome regulatory hurdles will serve the world well for developing new treatments for all diseases.

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