“Women in Pharma” Attendance Soars at the Product Show

Thank you to the 100-plus attendees who turned out for our first-ever Women in Pharma (WIP) event at the Product Show (and our second event overall). And a special thank you to our featured speaker, Dr. Trish Hurter, Senior VP, Pharmaceutical and Preclinical Sciences at Vertex.  Dr. Hurter has contributed to four breakthrough drugs and conceived and executed the first FDA-approved continuous manufacturing facility in the world. She is also the founder and executive sponsor of IWILL, a Vertex employee resource network devoted to the advancement of women leaders.

Dr. Hurter shared her career story including her technical and leadership triumphs and challenges, all of which she faced with a sense of humor and optimism, and engaged attendees in a lively, interactive Q&A session as a wrap up to her presentation. Her message was inspiring, motivating and thoroughly enjoyable – all at the same time – and left the audience both awed and smiling. Quite a feat!

Getting down to business, WIP leaders Katie Leitch, Kathryn Marini and Caren Jenkins reviewed the inaugural WIP event held in June and shared initial plans to put the attendees’ input into action:

• Differentiation – what makes us unique?
  • The consensus among attendees was to focus on women in engineering and manufacturing in the pharma/biotech industry, a niche that would be uniquely ours.
  • One goal of the group will be to increase the visibility of women leaders in engineering and manufacturing by encouraging women to actively participate and present at industry events. The more visible women leaders there are, the more women will be encouraged to join the industry and seek leadership opportunities once there.
• Small networking groups (professional moais)
  • Attendees indicated they would value small network groups that would foster deep, supportive professional relationships. They liked the idea of connecting with people from outside their immediate work environment to discuss challenges, explore ideas and provide support to one another.
  • In Japan, moais are small, social network groups formed to provide mutual support for their members. (Moai, pronounced mo-ai, means “meeting for a common purpose” in Japanese.)
  • The moai concept neatly fits what attendees said they are looking for, so we are planning to facilitate creation of professional moais for those who are interested.  Watch for more to come on this and contact the Chapter office at office@ispeboston.org if you are willing to help get the moai initiative off the ground.
• Future WIP events
  • Since attendees indicated they would prefer a few high quality events (rather than many smaller events) and a mixture of education/career growth and social events, the plan is to hold 3-4 key events per year in addition to smaller events and initiatives.
  • The next WIP event will be held during the first week of December – look for more information to come.  We encourage all who are interested to join us and look forward to seeing you there!

Are you interested in actively participating in any aspect of the Women in Pharma initiative? Let us know by emailing the Chapter at office@ispeboston.org with “WIP” or “Women in Pharma” in the subject line and we’ll be in touch.

Additional info on moais can be found in a New York Times article entitled “The Power of Positive People” at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/well/the-power-of-positive-people.html).

To review all the slides presented at the WIP event at the Product Show, click here.