The First SAPA-GP Annual Conference organized by the Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association Philadelphia Chapter (SAPA-GP) was held with a great success on October 19, 2002 at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. This is the first major event organized by SAPA-GP after its chartering in the early fall of 2002. The theme of this conference was “Drug Discovery in the 21^st Century”.  This one-day event attracted more than 200 professionals working in the pharma/biopharma industry as well as students, postdocs and professors at academia in the tri-state area (PA, NJ and DE).  Featured speakers included senior top executives from major pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and China such as Merck, GSK, Wyeth and Qilu.  This conference also served as SAPA Greater Philadelphia chapter’s formal inauguration.

The conference started with an opening remark from the president of SAPA-GP Dr. Liang Bo.  He stated that SAPA-GP was established to serve the rapid growth of pharma/biopharma professional community in the greater Philadelphia area that hosts six of the world’s top-ten largest pharmaceutical companies as well as many mid/small pharma/biopharma companies and academic institutions. Following Dr. Liang's remark, the current SAPA president, Dr. Guo Jianzhong, gave a spiriting congratulation and greeting to the conference and SAPA-GP. The keynote speakers of the morning session covered a wide range of disciplines of topics.  Dr. Douglas Mendenhall, Vice President of Pharmaceutical R&D of Merck Research Laboratories, outlined the roles technical management played in aligning organizational objectives and employee needs.   Dr. Magid Abou-Gharbia, Vice President of Chemical Sciences of Wyeth Research, presented a comprehensive review of the drug discovery process especially in the therapeutic areas of the central nervous system and antihistamines.  Dr. Patrick Crowley, Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development of GlaxoSmithKline, discussed the philosophy guiding the stability testing and how to ensure the quality of materials incorporated into one’s products. The fourth keynote speaker in the morning session, Dr. John J. Baldwin, the co-founder, President and Chief Science Officer of Concurrent Pharmaceuticals, Inc., revealed the myth of utilizing rational drug design and computational approaches to accelerate drug discovery.  These keynote speeches marked a high-level of scientific Excellencies of the conference.

The themes for the afternoon section covered professional career development, entrepreneurship, and current status of Chinese Biotech and Pharmaceutical Industry. Successful industrial and academic professionals and entrepreneurs shared their valuable experiences with audience in the Career Development and Entrepreneur Symposium. Dr. Zheng Qunyi, Executive Vice President and Director of Science and Technology of Pure World Botanicals, shared with the audience his personal experience of how to make career advancement in the corporate world here in the U.S.  Professor Zhang Xumu, CTO of Chiral Quest and Associate Professor at Penn State University, talked about how to start a successful business by commercializing technologies developed in academia.  Dr. Steve Sun, President of GeneWiz, made an excellent presentation of “From Scientist to Entrepreneur”; while the experts and top executives from China discussed the challenges and opportunities in the revolutionary changing of Chinese pharmaceutical industry in the Chinese Biotech and Pharma Industry Symposium. Mr. Li Botao, President of Qilu Pharamceutcial Co., gave an overview of the current status and opportunities of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. Dr. William Huang, CSO of Shenzheng Bio-Port and Professor of Zhongshan University, talked about biotech industry in China and opportunities in Shenzhen bio-port. Dr. Wang Jinyi, Vice President of Qilu, shared his experience working in Chinese pharmaceutical industry after returning to China from the US. The conference concluded with a panel discussion, which provided a great opportunity for audience to interact with speakers. 

During the conference, Corporate Excellence Awards were presented to Merck Research Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth Research, Qilu Pharmaceutical Co. and Synergetica, Inc. for their grand support of SAPA-GP activities. The conference was also generously supported by many other companies. Fourteen Executive Council members of SAPA-GP were also announced in the conference, they are: Ping Cao, Wenting Chen, Albert Li, George Li, Jian Li, Jiangfan Li, Bo Liang,  Li Shi, Haisong Tan, Jim Wang, Jian Xu, Han-Cheng Zhang, Linghang Zhuang and Demin Zhu.

The first SAPA-GP Annual Conference turned out to be a great success and was very well received by the participants.  It provided opportunities for the participants to gain more insight into the drug development process and industry trends, to initiate networking, to share business ideas and experiences, and to learn business opportunities in China. Many people have expressed gratitude for the great efforts that SAPA-GP Pre-Organization Committee members made to organize this event, as well as interest in participating in future SAPA-GP events in this area.