In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced a Precision Medicine Initiative, with a goal “to enable a new era of medicine through research, technology, and policies that empower patients, researchers, and providers to work together toward development of individualized care” (Mission Statement of the Precision Medicine Initiative 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/precision-medicine). To this end, the 2015 American Statistical Association (ASA) Biopharmaceutical Section Statistics Workshop (the Biopharm Workshop) featured plenary presentations and panel discussion on The Future of Precision Medicine, a theme that persisted in many of the sessions and presentations throughout the Biopharm Workshop.
Building on a tradition that began at the 2014 Biopharm Workshop, organizers, presenters, or panelists from any session or short course had the opportunity to submit an article related to their research for consideration in a future issue of Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research (SBR), an issue that would be dedicated entirely to the 2015 Biopharm Workshop. The August 2016 issue of SBR is the realization of 18 months of planning, reading, identifying reviewers, making tough decisions, and, in some cases, hassling authors and reviewers for a quick turnaround to meet deadlines (real or perceived). While we are excited that the special issue is complete, we are saddened that this issue represents the last of our responsibilities as co-chairs for the 2015 Biopharm Workshop, an opportunity and honor for which we will both be forever grateful.
Most parallel sessions are included in the Biopharm Workshop as a result of a vote that is held during a meeting of the Organizing Committee; most articles are included from these sessions. In order to include important under-represented topics in the workshop program, we invited two proposals from among the unselected sessions to include as special invited sessions for the 2015 Workshop. The article Incorporating Patient Perspectives in the Medical Product Life Cycle represents research presented during one of these invited sessions.
We want to extend our sincere gratitude to the 2015 Biopharm Workshop steering committee members, organizing committee members, consultants, session chairs, session organizers, speakers, panelists, discussants, instructors, and volunteers for their dedication and diligence in creating a truly outstanding program. In addition, we want to thank ASA meeting planner, Christina Link, and the ASA staff for their tremendous efforts in coordinating the Workshop logistics.
We would like to thank manuscript authors for sharing their insights and expertise, and the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions that improved the content of the authors' contributions.
Finally, special thanks to José Pinhero and Jina Lee for their enthusiasm and support for this special issue.