– Written by John Salter, PHUSE EMEA Director

Each year at the US Connect, the PHUSE Board holds a face-to-face meeting, as the majority of the Board attend the conference. This year, however, we took a slightly different approach and held two meetings: one prior to the start of the conference and one straight after as this gave us the opportunity to hold discussions and consider action items relevant to the US Connect in addition to our ongoing vision. It also allowed real-time closure for some of the more time-critical agenda items.

For context, we meet as a Board on a monthly (virtual) basis to ensure PHUSE is delivering on our core mission – to share ideas to enhance the life sciences community – as well as keeping on top of the latest news and technological advances to meet the needs of our community.

With this in mind, our pre-event discussions centred around three important topics for immediate review: our current IT offerings, the current structure of our monthly Webinar Wednesday, and preparation for the events coming up over the next couple of years. We are looking into our current website providers and into integrating with existing (and potentially new) technologies. As you would expect, this is a ‘long ball game’ and will therefore be a continuous development process. For our webinars, we have recently changed format provider and we are looking at ways to expand on content so our members’ needs are met effectively.

For events in 2025, all I can say is, watch this space! We try to keep an element of mystery around our innovative approaches to conferences and other events and we are working closely with our event chairs to ensure we keep delivering the high-quality, informative events PHUSE has become famous for.

For the post-conference meetings, we debriefed on the successful content of the event, as well as areas for improvement. We have a few takeaways that we will be implementing over the coming months. We are also waiting on the finalisation of the surveys that were sent to attendees to examine ways we can improve; PHUSE is not a static organisation, and we depend on our members to keep the momentum.

We are looking into greater developments and expansion in our APAC region, more specifically within PHUSE India – Sarvesh Singh, APAC Director, and his team are increasing the footprint of PHUSE via discussion groups, Single Day Events and academia involvement. Further news will be delivered in the coming months, along with a blog post going into greater detail.

We continue to evaluate how our position and collaborations with regulatory, standards organisations, vendors and pharmaceutical companies bring unique value and potential to shape the way we work – we are building on the fantastic efforts of our Working Groups (kudos to Chris Price, our Working Groups Director, and his many teams) to continue developing our relationships with the FDA and the EMA as well as growing and nurturing newer relations with both Health Canada and the PMDA.

Turning to a soft-skill aspect, some diversity, equity and inclusion thoughts – some of the standout presentations at the US Connect led us to think a little more laterally about our approaches to this, and we are making definitive efforts in this direction. Again, watch this space.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our contributors, sponsors and members for their continued support of PHUSE – we are a volunteer-driven organisation and could not do what we do without your valuable input. We look forward to working with you all throughout the years to come.

*Don't miss our recent blog which introduces Shereen Khwajazada as Special Projects Director on the PHUSE Board. *