PDA Annual Meeting Marks Start of 75th Anniversary Celebration 30 March, 2021

The Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) announced the beginning of its 75th Anniversary celebration. The 2021 PDA Annual Meeting (15–17 March) and the Honor Awards Ceremony (24 March), both virtual online events, served as the official launch of the diamond anniversary. 

“Seventy-five years ago, our founders created the Parenteral Drug Association because they saw the value of collaborating to advance the industry to the benefits of patients.  While many things have changed since then, that purpose has not. I think they would be gratified by the achievements of the PDA since those beginnings, and excited about the potential for the next seventy-five years” said Richard Johnson, PDA President and CEO.

In the coming months, PDA will release videos, articles in the PDA Letter, and more in honor of the Association’s enduring impact on the sterile drug industry.  
On 18 November 1946, the State of New York approved PDA’s certificate of incorporation, signed by the Association’s “original six” directors: Harold London of the Estro Company, Rudolph Price of Metropolitan Labs, A. Lincoln Konwiser of the C.F. Kirk Company, Max Gold of Gold Leaf Pharmacal Company, attorney Arthur Herrick, and Abraham Wagner.

Formation of PDA was the brainchild of Arthur Herrick, who represented a number of parenteral drug manufacturers that were facing increasing scrutiny from a newly aggressive U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which had been strengthen by the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.  

Among the eight original goals on the certificate, PDA still actively fosters and advances the art and science of parenteral therapy and provides and disseminates information relating to parenteral drugs and parenteral therapy.