Celebrate the New

The start of a new year always brings energy and ideas. In January, we smashed the champagne bottle of good fortune on our sister magazine’s, Pharmaceutical Technology, first podcast series (called “Drug Solutions”), it’s first video interview series (called “Drug Digest”), and a new e-newsletter for BioPharm International (named “BP Elements”). Turns out much of the energy and fresh ideas in 2022 are coming in the form of outside expert interviews. I don’t know if this exactly qualifies as outsourcing our thinking, but as part of our response to the pandemic, that’s perhaps not a bad way to look at it.

Great lessons over the past two years include better ways to learn from others, and to communicate more fully and with tighter focus. Our new vehicles enable easy engagement to experts and ways to form supporting networks in a durable manner. I was mildly interested in oral recombinant vaccine manufacture until I heard the company founder presenting clinical trial highlights alongside the technical explanations of how this platform can be pointed successfully toward a surpassingly wide range of difficult to control and treat infections. Now I follow the field with genuine zeal.

Having these videos and podcasts out in the real world has already provided quite unexpected feedback and comment. Multiple new contacts have spent time to offer novel topics or have asked us to question why we chose a certain approach to a particular field. This kind of interaction is always to be welcomed, especially if we recall lord Reith (founder of the BCC in 1922) said saeva indignatio was not to be had for the mere asking. It was Reith who famously set the mission of broadcasting as being to inform, educate, and entertain.

As we fill out the schedule of topics, personalities, and priorities for these new formats, the terrain seems alive with possibilities. The process of reshaping inevitably leads to fresh insights, even though we have been planning and preparing over most of last year. Good things take time it seems, but time taken repays efforts at the finish line, at the packaging center, and at the sales meeting. In an industry revved up by the need to move quickly, usable information and thoughtful perspective must be distilled and enlivened—just like champagne!

Article Details

BioPharm International
Vol. 35, No. 2
February 2022
Pages: 6

Citation

When referring to this article, please cite it as C. Spivey, “Celebrate the New,” BioPharm International 35 (2) (2022).