How do we develop new medicines to treat nasty diseases? It all starts by discovering a novel target molecule in the lab. Fast forward 12 years and an average expenditure of 1.5 billion dollars we hopefully get the thumbs up from health authority bodies to license the medicine for public use.
So we skipped a lot of important steps there. The journey for developing new medicines is extremely lengthy and complicated. Fortunately, you can listen to this podcast and know all the important stuff in 20 minutes!
Statisticians are involved in all aspects of drug development. Having knowledge of the process from start to finish is important, as it will help you understand why statistics is an essential and relied upon toolkit in this industry.
- Quick overview of the drug development process
- Where and why statisticians add value in the process
- Key stakeholder interactions - who do statisticians collaborate with?

What are the bigger trends in the biopharmaceutical industry, which will have an impact for statisticians?
. . . in terms of technology changes?
. . . in terms of regulatory changes?
. . . in terms of political/society changes?
What can statisticians do to prepare for these changes?

Why is text mining so important?
What are the typical challenges and research questions in this area?
Are there any ones typical for medical/pharmaceutical research?
What data sources could we tap into?
What are some foundational concepts in natural language processing?

What can you learn from Leanardo Da Vinci on how to put things into perspective?
Do you struggle with learning about data communication?
How important is data visualization?

Storytelling is one of the great leadership things that play a role in communication. Through stories, you can get the alignment, you can influence others, and you can have an impact on others. It's one of the pieces of a puzzle to be an effective statistician.

What can you learn from Leonardo Da Vinci on how to put things into perspective?
Do you struggle with data communication?
How important is data visualization?

Do you have great ideas but struggling to implement them?
Is having an idea and just being right already good enough?
What can you do to convince your supervisor?
How can you help others understand your point of view?
Do you have the right tools on how to make things work?

In this episode, I'm speaking with two members of The Effective Statistician Leadership program. One is coming from academia and one is from a pharmaceutical organization - they both have interesting and inspiring success stories.

Do you have what it takes to be a leader?
What skills can you learn from the leadership program?
What is the mastermind concept?
How can the leadership program help you become a better influencer?

In this interview, I’m speaking with two leadership students, Sam and Ludi, on what they have developed throughout The Effective Statistician Leadership program. You’ll learn a lot about how leadership helps you to achieve your goals at work and how it also helps you to increase your job satisfaction.

Have you thought about being a leader?
Do you feel responsible or afraid of taking the lead?
Are you equipped enough to be one?

Our definition of leadership is the ability to consistently deliver value to an organization or a cause by inspiring others to take a specific direction or action when they truly have the freedom of choice to do otherwise.

Do others not help you?
Are they making your life hard?
Is your company bad?
Does your compound suck and hinders your work productivity?

A lot of people complain about almost everything.
Statisticians tend to be more on the introvert side and there are discussions that introverts are more likely to have a victim mentality.