Category: Pharmaceuticals

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What it is: 1/28/08

What I’m reading: John Lanchester’s Mr. Phillips, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, Vol. 3

What I’m listening to: Sing You Sinners, by Erin McKeown

What I’m watching: almost finished with the first season of The Wire!

What I’m drinking: Balgownie Estate 2004 shiraz

Where I’m going: No trips planned this week, although we’re thinking of visiting our friends in Providence next weekend

What I’m happy about: that the heavy push to get my Jan/Feb combo issue done in time for Informex has left me a little more leeway in putting together the March issue and planning out April and May

What I’m sad about: that one of my best pals just deployed for “parts unknown” with his carrier group, and the dad of another of my pals just had surgery to remove some not-so-good cells from his pancreas

What I’m pondering: how awesome it is that, when I felt a twinge of nostalgia for my old college stomping grounds on Saturday, I was able to zoom in the satellite view on Google Maps, retrace my old travels, and remember that the Amherst Cinema is where I first watched Miller’s Crossing

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Conference Call

As the editor of a (trade) magazine, part of my job involves finding pertinent topics for articles and good writers to cover them. One way to do this is to look through brochures for conferences and call presenters who are speaking on subjects of interest. Sometimes they’ll be able to adapt their presentation into an article. Other times, they have a suggestion for another writer, or are available for an interview on the subject.

And today, this happened:

“Hi, [X], I’m Gil Roth, the editor at Contract Pharma magazine. I was going through the brochure for [conference Y] next week and noticed that you’re speaking on [subject Z]. I was wondering if we could talk about adapting your presentation into an article for an upcoming issue.”

“What conference?”

“[Conference Y].”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They have you listed as a ‘distinguished speaker’ and you’re scheduled to speak at 2pm on the second day.”

“Hmm. Where is this conference?”

“[City A]. Ringing any bells?”

“Nope, but at least it’s not far from here. What’s the URL for the conference?”

“[Website B]. But that’s just the main site for the company.”

“I’ll look it up. Next Friday, huh?”

“That’s what the brochure says.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll start adapting my basic presentation.”

“Sure thing!”

Amazingly, I actually did ask him to adapt the presentation into an article for the March issue. And he accepted! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to set up my e-mail to send him a reminder every 36 hours until the deadline. . .

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Belichick Chemicals?

Yes, clients occasionally put me up in fancy-pants hotels (where amenities include loaner laptops and goldfish) for press briefings.

Yes, clients occasionally take me out to dinner in fancy-pants restaurants.

No, this hasn’t stopped me from hitting a halal street-meat cart for lamb & chicken rice platter.

* * *

Best line from the press briefings: When asked about about the rigorous process his company has for suppliers of chemical ingredients, one of the VPs told us, “One supplier sent us the chemicals in a cut-off sweatshirt sleeve.”

Evidently, the supplier didn’t want to bother filling out proper certificates or taking care of traceability requirements, so they just . . . wrapped the chemicals in a cut-off sweatshirt sleeve and shipped ’em off to a global provider.

“The supplier was based in an, um, evolving economy,” we were told.

* * *

Here’s a picture from the staircase in the restaurant:

Staircase at Amalia NYC

And here’s a picture of Greene St., running north of Canal:

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Show some resolve!

Whoops! I was so busy getting the Jan/Feb issue of my mag together that I almost missed my New Year’s Resolution of making sure I post at least one item every day!

Fortunately, I came across this neat writeup about companies that worked for/with Nazi Germany. “Enjoy”!
(And, yes, I do own a Hugo Boss suit, but it was in clearance, so I got to exert my Jewish stereotype on that one.)

My other resolution is to get back to only drinking water, black coffee or gin. I slipped up and had a Dr. Pepper a few days ago, and Amy broke out a bottle of wine Saturday night, but I’m sticking with it pretty well!

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Da boom

Yesterday was one of Those Days. I refer to them as “Blow Up The Outside World Days,” since I usually remark, “I will kill everyone on the planet,” at least three or four times.

They don’t happen very often; in this instance, it’s a function of getting our annual year-end issue ready for production. Last year’s book weighed in at 406 pages, and this year’s will be pretty close to that. My associate editor and I have to stay on top of 110 companies that are running profiles in first half of the issue, and the 450+ companies that are participating in the contract services directory. She’s been doing a great job on the profiles, but it can still be a monster to get this issue laid out, since the companies run alphabetically and a few companies — including one that begins with a “B” — is still on the fence about actually running a profile in this ish, about two weeks after the deadline.

I had a few ugly exchanges with people yesterday, and had to be the douchebag decision-maker. I also spent a lot of time muttering in a self-pitying sorta way. It’s not productive, but hey.

Anyway, the next two days are going to be spent laying out that directory, so don’t expect a lot of posting. I do have some Unrequired Reading together, so at least you VM junkies have something to look forward to!

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What am I, a farmer?

Last night, I was writing to a buddy about how tired I was from my autumn biz-travel schedule. I think I was attempting to elicit sympathy for going to Milan, Las Vegas and San Diego over the course of 6 weeks. “Boy, you think you’ve got it tough. . .”

In that spirit, I won’t even try to express any sort of discomfort over tonight’s gala in NYC. It’s a dinner/dance benefit event for Just One Break, an employment service for people with disabilities. Pfizer’s outgoing R&D chief is one of the honorees, and one of my pals at that company kindly invited me and my wife. (Thanks, Mak!)

I’m suspicious that this is just a plot by my (day job) readership to find out exactly what sorta woman would consent to spend the rest of her life married to me, so I’m thinking of asking Amy to wear a burka to the event.

I, meanwhile, am wrestling with the concept of “black tie optional.” I don’t think that covers leather chaps and a giant sombrero, so it looks like I’ll have to stop off at the dry cleaner and ransom my nice black suit.

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Missingthepoint.net

I was going through our office’s mail just now, so I could grab my industry-specific magazines before they get filed. I have to keep up with some of our competitors, like Genetic Engineering News and Pharmaceutical Processing. We’re all on each other’s mailing lists, usually under funny names and fake companies. I also keep an eye out for general business magazines that have pharma-specific editorial, to see how much they get wrong.

Today, I came across one of the great business magazines of all time: Messaging News, The Technology of Email and Instant Messaging.

I chuckled over the idea of a print magazine devoted to instant electronic communication, but I really laughed when I discovered that it comes out bi-monthly.

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Givin’ him the business

Last business-trip of the year, dear readers! I’m off to San Diego for the AAPS conference! I managed to get two suits, a second pair of shoes, and a third day’s business attire in my carryon case! Sure, they’ll be a bit compressed by the time I get to my hotel, but at least I won’t have to stand around at baggage claim!

Oh, and happy Veteran’s Day / Armistice Day!

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Penn Paul

Driving to Pennsylvania yesterday (for this news event), I was reminded of what it’s like to live in a swing state. In presidential elections, NJ’s firmly in the Democratic camp, so we tend not to get much (any) outdoor political advertising.

In fall of 2004, I drove on Rt. 95 into Philadelphia and was amazed by the sheer volume of election signs as I approached the city. My favorite enormous billboards were the ones that complained about the loss of our freedom of speech.

Now, the general election is more than a year away and the state’s primaries are six months off, but Pennsylvania reminded me of its swing state status almost instantly. Moments after I entered the state, I saw yard signs for Ron Paul. As I drove below overpasses, I looked up to see banners for the guy.

No other candidates had any presence, so I’m not sure if this means that Paul’s got an iron grip on the Rt. 78/22 corridor of Pennsylvania or if his supporters are jumping the gun by a few months.