PDA's Successful Return to In-Person Meetings

The 2022 PDA Annual Meeting drew almost 700 participants and much relief from members and industry professionals as a step in the direction towards a new normal.

The open plenary session was standing room only as Richard Johnson, President & CEO, and Susan Schniepp, PDA volunteer Chair, greeted the audience to rousing cheers as they acknowledged the difficulties everyone had faced over the previous two years. Both credited the Annual Meeting program planning committee for their dedicated work to develop an agenda to help professionals in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry “Level Up: Agility in the New Normal.” They also thanked the meeting’s Gold Sponsors, Samsung Biologics and Smartskin Technologies, and its Silver Sponsor, Alcami.

Finally, they thanked everyone in attendance for showing after two-years of consuming PDA material over their monitors.

The two leaders then announced the winners of the 2021 PDA Honor Awards, who will be featured in a series of articles in the PDA Letter, starting later this month.

The co-chairs of the planning committee, Shelly Preslar, President and COO of Azzur Training Center Raleigh, and Jason Kerr, Sr. GXP Specialist, Redica Systems, took over following the introductions and acknowledgements to introduce the opening speakers.

Jeffrey Baker, Sr. Fellow National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIMBL) challenged the audience to think about future emergency responses in his talk, “Pandemic Response, Regulatory Rubric, and the Nature of Rubber Bands.” Donna Boyce, SVP Global Regulatory Affairs, Pfizer Inc., provided the perfect follow up discussion in her talk, “Moving Forward from Abrupt Regulatory Challenges to the New Normal.”

The plenary session remained at full capacity and the audience engaged for the late afternoon session. Benjamin Borgo, Head of Portfolio Management and Product Development, MilliporeSigma, presented “Challenges in CRISPR-based Gene Editing: Is it worth the risk?” Michael Brothers, Technical Program Manager/Principal Scientist, UES, Inc., ended the first day with, “Emerging Pathogens and the Emerging Platforms and Modalities for Bio-Surveillance to Identify Them.”

Following the session, attendees packed the opening of the exhibit hall, to the satisfaction of the more than 70 exhibitors who awaited two-years to greet the PDA community in person once again.

Following the conference, many participants will attend PDA’s 2022 Annex 1 Workshop.

The 2023 PDA Annual Meeting will be in New Orleans.