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Spotlight on Groups & Forums

Volume 10, Number 2
September 2001

Pharmaceutical Forum

The Pharmaceutical Forum continues to expand its membership and add to the pharma/biopharma representation on the board of directors.

Our subcommittee on Supplier Diversity is growing in its representation, as well. The board has approved an Amos Tuck award for a minority firm to attend the Dartmouth College program and another to the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. Each award is for $5,000.

On April 27, we participated in an awards/endowment ceremony at Bowling Green State University, at which our $25,000 scholarship was presented to the university to fund a program in its supply chain graduate program.

We have approved a $25,000 grant to North Carolina State University in the Master of Science graduate program in Supply Chain studies. We will work with Robert Handfield, who is the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of supply chain management and director of the Supply Chain Resource Consortium, to develop a research agenda that deals with issues in the pharma areas. We are exploring awards to Rutgers, St. John, and Lehigh.

At this year’s NAPM Annual International Purchasing Conference, Free Markets presented a follow-up to last year’s presentation on Reverse Auctions. Over 130 people attended the workshop.

We’ve launched a subcommittee to address training for procurement professionals within our industries.

We are currently conducting benchmarking and sharing learnings and practices among our board members on the use of procurement cards.

A subcommittee is also reviewing succession planning for our board of directors. The need to infuse new leadership is one we’ve not previously addressed. However, with mergers and acquisitions continuing to accelerate in our industry, we have to develop a program.

The Pharmaceutical Forum’s next workshop is on September 24-25, 2001, in Baltimore, at the new Marriott Waterfront Hotel. Our topic is "Electronic Commerce — Now What Do We Do?" This workshop will expand on what we explored in earlier ones on the birth and subsequent explosion of e-commerce and its promised benefits. If you want to explore the options for the future with some of the best thinkers and recognized experts in the field, this workshop is for you. If you are interested, please contact Sam Straight at 919/483-4086 or by e-mail at sls9121@gsk.com.

Submitted by Sam Straight
Forum Chair


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