Three pharmaceutical industry organisations - the ACRO, the DIA and the ISPE - People on the move

The global clinical outsourcing industry body, the Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO) has announced the election of new officers to represent the organisation in 2008. David Spaight, who is president of MDS Pharma Services, was chosen as the new chair of the ACRO, taking over from Jeffrey McMullen, president and CEO of PharmaNet Development Group, who held the post during 2007. Spaight moves from his 2007 position of chair-elect of the association, and has been replaced by Stephen DeCherney, chief innovation officer of Quintiles Transnational. Commenting on his appointment, Spaight said: "I am pleased to assume leadership of ACRO at such an exciting time for our industry as CROs are experiencing unprecedented growth".​ "In 2008, ACRO will continue to demonstrate the increasing contribution of CROs to the development of new drugs and biomedical products. We will continue to provide our members with key opportunities to represent the CRO industry to regulators and policy makers, research sponsors, patient groups, and others internationally."​ Meanwhile, the Drug Information Association (DIA) has recently appointed Linda McGoldrick as its new worldwide executive director. McGoldrick joins the DIA with international experience in both the healthcare and financial sectors and in her most recent position she was serving as president and CEO of Financial Health Associations International (FHAI), where she led multinational teams in the creation and implementation of growth strategies for international companies. She plans to continue on in a similar vein in her new post: "One of my primary objectives is to establish a foothold in several emerging markets such as India, China, Eastern Europe, and Latin America that promise exciting opportunities from both business operations and educational perspectives,"​ she said. In other news, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has revealed that John Berridge will become the new Europe regulatory affairs advisor as of 1 February. In this role Berridge will assist ISPE in its interactions with European regulatory authorities as well as helping to move forward ISPE's new product quality lifecycle implementation (PQLI) initiative. Berridge retired from his position as European vice president of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Pfizer's R&D facility in Sandwich, England in January 2006 and has since operated within the industry as a consultant. ISPE is a non-profit organisation with members from 90 countries, and serves as a neutral forum for industry, regulatory agencies and academics to interact.