January 2011 Newsletter

From the Executive Director

2010 saw the Pistoia Alliance establish itself as a leader in the development of best practices to streamline processes, services, and data and application integration in the precompetitive domains of life science R&D. And yes, my ability to write that sentence comes from our efforts at the end of 2010 to define precisely what Pistoia is and the unique value we provide.

This year, the Pistoia Alliance hired me (Pistoia's executive director) and retained Deb Ausman to manage communications--including this newsletter. Our project teams have done great work, and have major deliverables for release in early 2011. Our active membership encompasses a variety of stakeholders from user companies, scientific literature publishers, academics, technology suppliers, and other standards organizations. We had our first board face-to-face meeting in January 2010 and plan to repeat that event this year-and we're adding a conference and members' meeting in April that will showcase our activities to a broader community. We also expect to launch a new external web site by the end of Q1, which will support our efforts to reach out to our stakeholders and advertise the results we're delivering.

2011 should be a great year; read on to see why! And I look forward very much to working with all of you this year.

John Wise, Executive Director
Pistoia Alliance

PS: Many of the links in the articles that follow direct to Basecamp, our members' area. If you aren't a member of the Pistoia Alliance, consider joining to get the full story.

Pistoia Alliance Events

We are running a range of events this quarter open to our members and partners. Space is limited at each event so please sign up early. Click to view our full list of events.
  • London Dinner and Debate, 9 Feb. 2011 (17:30-22:00 GMT), Central London (near Green Park), UK. All members are welcome to join the board for a buffet dinner and debate/discussion on hosted services and cloud computing. Register to reserve your spot.
  • Board Face-to-Face Meeting, 8-9 Feb. 2011, Berkeley Square, London, UK. Highlights will include keynote talks from Professor Carole Goble and Rowan Gardner. Participants will discuss the future of life sciences R&D, brainstorm over the entire Alliance portfolio, and plan the first Pistoia Alliance Conference and Members' Meeting.
  • Workshop: Next Generation Sequencing, 3 March 2011, AstraZeneca (Alderley Park), Manchester, UK. Register now for the Conference.

Read more...

Updates from the Working Groups

Many of Pistoia's working groups will be starting 2011 by announcing deliverables from their work.  For complete details on Pistoia Alliance projects, visit www.pistoia.basecamphq.com/clients or for questions on any of the current working groups, email the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . We are also building a new portfolio of projects comprising new phases of existing projects and entirely new initiatives. Send ideas to the Executive Director or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , President of the Pistoia Alliance.

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External Engagement/Conferences

Obviously, the Alliance's message resonates with informatics professionals in life science R&D. But in 2010, Ian Harrow took the message to some less obvious, but no less important, audiences. After speaking at the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) workshop in May (a presentation and MP3 recording is available in Basecamp), Ian Harrow spoke in October at the International Conference on Trends for Scientific Information Professionals. View Ian's presentation.

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Technical Committee: Leadership Change

Ray Reichard has recently left Roche and stepped down from his position as Technical Committee chair. Many thanks to Ray for establishing this important committee and we wish him well in the future. We are delighted to announce that Pierre Menard, research domain architect at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Princeton, NJ, will serve as the new chair of this committee. After brief stints in high-tech, telecom, and software startups, Pierre found a higher calling in the life sciences sector after working in product development at a medical devices company.  Pierre has since done software consulting on the technology vendor side and tackled major software initiatives within biopharmaceutical R&D.  Pierre enjoys poker and single malt scotches. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Resources and Communications

Communications will play an increasingly important role in the Alliance's operations in 2011. We're kicking off the year by engaging a web design firm, Kennedy Consulting Group, to revamp the Alliance's external web site. The site will feature a blog that will enable the members to publicly discuss issues relevant to the Alliance and showcase their expertise. Deb Ausman, our communications manager, will lead the web design project and serve as editor for the planned blog.

Look for more details on this effort in January. We concluded the year by refining our message and positioning so that the Alliance presents a singular, consistent identity to stakeholders. This is particularly important given that we are a virtual organization. You can find our new presentation boilerplate and other key messaging in Basecamp. Deb has also developed a presentation template, which includes a new master slideset and positioning slides that can be slotted into talks given on behalf of the Alliance. Please direct any questions about comms to Deb at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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