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ASCPT Member of the Month
The ASCPT Member of the Month—a forum to recognize and thank a member of ASCPT who has supported the Society's endeavors. Each month ASCPT highlights ONE member who has gone above and beyond the call of duty! We hope you enjoy learning about your fellow members and always encourage your participation in Society events and activities. ASCPT is proud to recognize Dr. Gary Novack as the October Member of the Month. Dr. Novack has been an active member of ASCPT since joining in 1983. As you can see Dr. Novack is an avid cyclist. When he's not off on his bike enjoying the fresh air you will find him busy with his many leadership roles within ASCPT. He is Chair the Drug Development and Regulatory Science (DDR) Scientific Section, and also serves on the Coordinating Committee on Scientific Sections (CCSS) with responsibility for the DDR, DER (Dermatological and Allergic Diseases) and PED (Pediatric and Maternal Pharmacology) sections. Dr. Novack is President, PharmaLogic Development, Inc., a biomedical consulting firm based in San Rafael, California, near San Francisco. While Dr. Novack has worked in many therapeutic areas, most of his work has been in topical drug treatments, primarily ophthalmology and dermatology. Dr. Novack explains the challenges he faces in his daily work, "The interesting areas and exciting areas of clinical pharmacology are how to discover and develop new therapies. For some diseases (e.g., glaucoma), we have therapies, but of limited efficacy or safety. For other diseases (e.g., diabetic retinopathy), there are no approved therapies. In my daily work with firms developing new drugs, I find that I frequently call on basic principles of pharmacology - dose-response, potency vs. efficacy, and therapeutic index. With growing financial and regulatory pressures for drugs with lower risk (i.e., higher therapeutic indices), and the effort to treat chronic, degenerative diseases, there is an increasing challenge for "proof of concept" at earlier stage. This calls for innovative and interdisciplinary drug developers." Dr. Novack's perspective on his relationship with ASCPT for over twenty plus years, "In my over two decades as a member of ASCPT, the organization has given me an esprit de corps about being a clinical pharmacologist. I have had the chance for one-on-one interactions with many of the "deans" of our profession, including Leon Goldberg and Lew Sheiner (who I once asked "Why do we need to do simulations?"), as well as Michael Weintraub, Terry Blashcke, and John Urquhart. Our many symposia on topics such as clinical trial design, regulatory science and genomics have helped me keep current, and stimulated me to think about how to best use this science to develop better medicines." And he adds, "We frequently see public policy issues about drug efficacy, drug safety and drug cost in the lay press. I believe that ASCPT is the organization to best educate the public and the government about these important issues for our society." Dr. Novack, thank you for your valuable leadership and your commitment to ASCPT and the discipline of clinical pharmacology!
Previous Members of the Month:September 2006 - Sander Vinks, PharmD, PhD |
