January/February 2022: From the Editor

Happy 2022 to all of BPI’s loyal and supportive authors, readers, and advertisers. Despite continuing pandemic impediments, your industry continues to show remarkable flexibility and resilience. As technologies evolved to meet the demands for vaccines, tests, and treatments for COVID-19, new hybrid options have opened up opportunities for people to meet and collaborate.

Given the changing fortunes of our own publishing industry, managing this hybrid, controlled-publication model (peer-review + trade/B2B content) requires some agility of our own. So it should not be surprising that we editors are eager to celebrate every milestone. This year is BPI’s 20th year in publication (thus the special icon you’ll see on our cover throughout 2022), so we have a number of projects in the works and ways for you to help us celebrate.

BPI was founded in May 2002 (through Informa’s IBC conference group), with our first issue appearing in January of 2003. The founding staff included publisher Brian Caine, associate publisher Stephanie Shaffer, myself as editor in chief, and senior technical editor Cheryl Scott. The publication originally was designed by editors — and although our designs have been polished artfully over the years, we continue to do our own graphics and layout work.

The four founders had worked together on Advanstar’s BioPharm magazine. When Maribel Rios joined our staff as managing editor in 2010, she brought many years of experience with its sister publication Pharmaceutical Technology. Although Stephanie and Brian have left BPI, we’ve benefited from a level of stability in both sales and editorial staffing that has enabled us to thrive over the years. The addition of Brian Gazaille as associate editor added mature editing, writing, manuscript acquisition, and digital publication skills to our staff. Chris Johnson took the reins as associate publisher (not a small task) in the first year of the pandemic, stepping into his role seamlessly with new ideas about how to meet your needs.

We’ve enjoyed working with a few other editors on over the years in their assistant/associate roles: Molly Pumper, Christina Steffy, Leah Rosin (who left us in 2008 and returned in 2013 for her current marketing role), Lorna McLeod, and Alison Center. And we’ve seen transitions among our production and marketing teams too, always with a similar focus on continuity of operations and creation of innovative products, projects, and internal processes. Our plan for this year includes offering as many retrospective insights as we can glean from our advisors and readers. So here are a couple of opportunities for your consideration.

Reader Perspectives: I welcome eagerly your comments (email is fine) about changes you’ve seen in your areas of responsibility over the past 20 years. You might highlight advancements in new technologies or challenges facing the current industry (e.g., hiring, training, staffing). What new ways of thinking about sustainability and corporate responsibility have arisen, for example, along with diversity and inclusion? What will be the next big technology breakthrough? Where are we still “missing the boat” on exploiting opportunities?

Anniversary Issue: A formal anniversary issue will replace our usual “Innovators” resource issue this summer. If you would like to contribute, I can send you the timelines with a list of ideas for potential topics. Whether you’ve been in the industry for only a few years or are planning your well-deserved retirement, we want to hear your thoughts. Watch this space for more information about 20 years of BPI. And many thanks, as always, for the part you’ve played in our success.