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In those days, project management was relatively new to the
pharmaceutical sector and many of the people involved were
not formally trained, having moved from other roles in their
respective companies. In fact the original idea that led to
PIPMG came from a meeting of the Association of Information
Officers in the Pharmaceutical Industry (AIOPI) because some
of this group were taking on project management work alongside
their information science roles.
It soon became clear that there was a shared interest among
companies to find out how others were responding to the project
management challenge. Small meetings were held on a rotational
basis, hosted by the different companies involved. Typically
the host company would describe how it was implementing project
management and this would be followed by a general discussion.
After a couple of cycles, enthusiasm for these meetings declined
as each company progressed along its chosen track and general
awareness was greater. There was an attempt to broaden the
meetings both in terms of agenda and attendance and this met
with some success, with external speakers contributing on
a voluntary basis. However the administrative burden for the
host company became too great as the meetings increased in
size and at this point the future of PIPMG was unclear.
The core organising group decided that some 'new blood' was
required to take things forward more effectively but it proved
difficult to achieve the required continuity. On more than
one occasion during the early to mid 1990's PIPMG came close
to being dissolved. Then some of the original members agreed
to return in the form of a Steering Committee to bring some
structure to the planning of the twice-yearly meetings. It
was decided to engage a professional organisation to manage
the logistics of these meetings and the partnership with Browncroft
Associates was formed. This provided the structure and organisation
for PIPMG to grow rapidly since individual companies no longer
had to host meetings, even though volunteers were still required
to 'design' and run the programme. Using external venues also
provided greater capacity and the numbers of attendees increased
accordingly. Introducing new members to the Steering Committee
is no longer a problem and this bodes well for the future
development of the group.
For PIPMG today, the picture is very different from those
early days. All the original companies have been involved
in some form of consolidation and four of them are now one
(GlaxoSmithKline). The number of smaller companies has increased
significantly - some of these, such as Celltech, have become
substantial entities in their own right, while other have
found it more challenging to make the transition from a 'biotech'
to a more traditional pharmaceutical company. The role of
specialist service providers has increased as large companies
seek to outsource non-core activities and small companies
strive to take drugs further along the development pathway
before seeking licensing deals. PIPMG has embraced all these
changes and the current membership of around 500 from 65 companies
in the UK and Europe is truly representative of all those
involved in developing new medicines. In spite of all these
changes PIPMG has retained an informal structure that seems
to be valued by its members and provides an excellent networking
environment.
The pharmaceutical industry will continue to change and PIPMG,
having demonstrated its value, is well-placed to play an important
role in shaping best practice in project management well into
the future.
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