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PIPA Vision

Medical Information and Pharmacovigilance professionals collaborating to achieve clinical and operational excellence.

PIPA Mission

PIPA facilitates professional networking to share best practice and raise standards, supports personal training and development, delivers innovative resources and represents the views of the membership with key stakeholders. Our members proficiently enhance patient care and deliver great value and clinical credibility for their companies.

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PIPA - Our Association

Background:

The original AIOPI (Association of Information Officers of the Pharmaceutical Industry) was established back in 1974. About six years ago, following a comprehensive review and recognition of the significant speciality in Pharmacovigilance, we relaunched as PIPA. Maintaining ~700 members (including >40 overseas) and ~40 associate members from >100 companies for many years, we've obviously been delivering value for many people. However, earlier this year, we believed it was time to reflect on our activities and objectives in light of the developing environment and our members needs. It was time to redefine our strategy.

Information Gathering:

John Barber (Immediate Past President / Glenmark) and Aaron Cockill (Pfizer) initiated the review, recruiting insights from the existing PIPA Committee and a range of PV and MI Managers across the industry - this included active PIPA members and also non-PIPA participants. We were keen to gain a fresh image of our SWOT and priorities for development. This was followed by an online survey of a random subset of members to validate what we had heard...

By the time John handed the Presidents' baton over to me, a clear SWOT had been compiled:

STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
Networking - forums, conference	Failure to engage the wider industry
Working practices and guidelines	A volunteer organisation
Information sharing - PIPELINE, news alerts	Member engagement
Training	Acting as a voice for the profession
Support for all members - diversity, inclusion	Daily alert - too much advertising, repetition
The link between MI & PV	UK only
	Some key players are not members
	Standards should be mandatory
	Communication
OPPORTUNITIES	THREATS
Take a lead with the wider industry	Standing still
More networking - face to face, chat rooms	UK-centric in relation to other international professional organisations
Sharing best practice - more forums	Lack of engagement by wider industry
Europe/global	Not being seen as a serious organisation - dependency on volunteers
CPD/Training	Economic environment
Establish qualifications - PIPA
Become the voice of medical affairs

While we heard much positive feedback, we also recognised some key themes for development:

To recognise our limitations and potential - responsibly progress the direction, scope and scale of the association,
To define and clearly communicate the refined PIPA strategy - incl. publishing key deliverables / priorities / achievements,
To deliver and demonstrate the value of membership - for both members, their peers and their companies,
To improve membership engagement (ultimately driven by perception of the value delivered by PIPA) and ensure we're embracing relevant developing specialties,
To develop relationships with key stakeholders and parallel organisations.

While Medical Information and Pharmacovigilance remain our core disciplines, we believe it is essential that PIPA is agile to the diverse and developing areas of Medical Writing, ABPI Code and Copy Approval, Field Medical roles, Signal Detection, Risk Management Plans and of course Quality and Audit. A range of events and publications are being developed to support these however PIPA is dependent on committed members to step forward and share their expertise.

Progress to date:

Over the Summer months, we made significant progress with a number of initiatives. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the team for their efforts for example:

Recruited membership perspectives and responded to 3 MHRA consultations (MLX355, 358 and 359) - to represent membership and interact with the key stakeholder,
Contracted a consultant to conduct a project to develop a profile of Medical Information across the UK pharma industry - to provide benchmark info for membership and help us plan ahead,
Defined a new committee role, 'External Liaison - PV', to improve our interaction with Vigilance stakeholder bodies eg MHRA consultative committee and University of Hertfordshire (Pharmacovigilance MSc course) - to ensure we engage, lobby and align with key PV KOLs/stakeholders,
Initiated a project to progress PIPA from a personal membership organisation to a professional association (early days but we anticipate transition at 2010 AGM) - to enhance the perceived 'value' of membership for individuals and their company colleagues,
Improved email alerts re discussion room activity and enabled website cookies - to facilitate membership engagement with the website and sharing / networking,
Reviewed committee roles and admin support - to align skills to tasks and reduce the admin burden on the committee team, enabling them to be more strategic and progressive,
Engaged with a panel of PV and MI Managers to act as advisors to proactively comment on our approach and reactively express their views on proposals that share - to ensure our activities complement our membership needs and expectations,
Increased incentives for scribes - piloting discounted fees to encourage quality and timely write-ups of meetings.

PIPA Vision / Mission / Action Plan:

In mid-October, the Committee dedicated a further 4 hours to reflect on our key learns, collate our action plan and define our new Vision and Mission, as highlighted above.

Next steps in our plan include:

Employing Consultants - I will soon be liaising with all of our independent Consultant members to collate a profile of their areas of interest and expertise to see how we could utilise their talents for the benefit of the membership (for a fee, of course!).
Pipeline and Website refinements - While Pipeline is well regarded we are mindful that it is labour intensive and that certain articles would be more timely if published to our website for faster access. As such, we are reducing Pipeline from 6 to 4 editions / year and significantly increasing our website investment.
Enhanced networking opportunities -

We will be hosting a new Managers Meeting in late Jan/early Feb (informal evening event followed by full day programme). A prime opportunity to gather to receive the outputs from the MI operational benchmarking survey, define the programme for the July conference, discuss hot topics, feed initiatives and views into the Committee and informally network. We hope to include a professional development session too. Further information will follow(if you are a departmental Manager, please contact Anne Turnbull, our Operations Support, to ensure we have your details).
We will be piloting some virtual meetings and training updates over the coming year - we anticipate that these will be particularly useful for those who find it difficult to leave the office.
Re-energising the PIPA Discussion Forum and an online networking group.
Targeting selected organisations for partnership opportunities.

Outsourcing or stopping activities - a range of procedures and activities have been cited for review (essential to free up resources to progress elsewhere!)

Early days as yet but, in readiness for our AGM in July 2010, we are also reconsidering the overall concept of PIPA membership. Should we maintain professional records for our members to confirm their professional contribution to PIPA and the overall MI/PV expertise? Should we incentivise participation and contribution to PIPA initiatives? Which tangible benefits of membership are most valued currently, and what do you want us to develop? Food for thought...

As emphasised in the title - PIPA is 'Our Organisation'. Please share your views and proposals to ensure PIPA progresses appropriately for you, its members.

Sarah Dunnett
PIPA President
Medical Affairs Manager - Baxter Healthcare Ltd