PDA Annual Meeting and Honor Awards Ceremony Begins 75th Anniversary Celebration

The 2021 PDA Annual Meeting (15–17 March) and the Honor Awards Ceremony (24 March), both virtual online events, marked the beginning of celebrations for PDA’s 75th Anniversary.

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.

The certificate of incorporation lists eight goals for PDA:

1. To foster and advance, in the interest of public health, the art and science of parenteral therapy, and to preserve and improve the integrity and stability of the parenteral drug industry.
2. To provide and disseminate information relating to parenteral drugs and parenteral therapy.
3. To foster and encourage a spirit of friendly cooperation among its members and promote favorable relations between its members and the medical and pharmaceutical professions.
4. To cultivate and maintain cooperative relations with governmental departments and agencies, medical and pharmaceutical organizations, and other branches of the drug and related industries; and to originate and participate in cooperative enterprise and undertakings with them.
5. To collect and disseminate, for the benefit of members, such business and scientific information as may be of value to them.
6. To sponsor research projects into matters of scientific and technical interest in the field of parenteral medication.
7. To review the labeling and advertising of its members in light of current regulation and advances in medical science, and to dispel uncertainty in such matters.
8. To promote higher standards in the production of parenteral drugs.

Seventy-five years later, PDA still performs most these tasks, though it is hard to imagine our members reviewing the labeling and advertising materials of the thousands of parenteral products on the market today!

The Honor Awards Ceremony is a tradition that dates back deep into PDA’s history. The oldest award, Honorary Membership, was first bestowed to Arthur Herrick in 1958. The tradition of honoring PDA volunteers whose contributions have greatly impacted the industry has grown ever since. The ultimate honor is the creation of an award in recognition of one’s long-time service to PDA. Currently seven awards are named for past PDA volunteers.

Over the next few months, the PDA Letter will feature each award and the 2020 winners honored at the 24 March ceremony.

We start with the oldest award—Honorary Membership. This award is not granted every year, as it confers lifetime membership benefits to the recipient. It is bestowed upon those members who deserve recognition for very long and significant service. In 2020, the PDA Awards Committee recognized a long-time member who not only has won several other awards, served on advisory boards, the board of directors, and is a past-chair of PDA, but also has an honor award named after him: Martin VanTrieste.

Martin is still very active with PDA, having recently published a series of articles in the PDA Letter regarding the COVID-19 vaccines and pharmaceutical supply chains, despite also serving as the CEO of Civica RX, an organization he helped found following a long career with Amgen, Bayer, and Abbott Laboratories.

To read more about Martin and all of the 2020 Honor Award Winners (before they appear here in the PDA Letter), go to https://www.pda.org/membership/pda-honor-awards.

Next up: The Frederick Carleton Award.