Several quantitative methodologies have been proposed to support decision-making in drug development. In particular, MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a useful tool to assess the benefit-risk balance of medicines according to the performances of the treatments on several criteria, accounting for the preferences of the decision-makers regarding the relative importance of these criteria. The EMA Benefit-Risk Methodology Project suggested that it is one of the most comprehensive among the quantitative methodologies they considered, and it is also recommended by several highly profiled expert groups. While MCDA requires the exact elicitation of the weights of the criteria according to the preferences of the decision-makers, extended versions of MCDA have been proposed, such as Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) and Dirichlet SMAA, where the weights are considered as random variables to account for some uncertainty in the weight assignment.
This webinar proposes a very concrete illustration of MCDA and of the extended models SMAA and Dirichlet SMAA using case-studies. We will present how to derive a benefit-risk utility score for each treatment, how to compare several treatments, how to present the results and how to conduct sensitivity analyses. The differences between the models will be highlighted, and some R code will be presented and shared after the presentation.
About the Presenter: Gaelle Saint-Hilary
Gaelle Saint-Hilary works in statistics for the pharmaceutical industry since 2006. She is currently completing a PhD on “Quantitative Decision-Making in Drug Development”, sponsored by Servier, at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). Before that, she worked as biostatistician in the industry, first at Servier for 5 years and then at Novartis Oncology for 4 years. She was responsible for the clinical development and the licensing of medicinal products in neuropsychiatry and leukemia, and her main scientific interests were benefit-risk assessment, network meta-analyses, multiple test procedures, simulation models of time-to-event data and survival analysis in presence of intercurrent events. The development and the promotion of quantitative methods for drug benefit-risk assessments is one of the major topics she considers during her PhD, with the final goal of enhancing decision-making throughout the drug life-cycle.
About the Presenter: Stephanie Cadour
Graduated in 2011, Stéphanie Cadour works as a biostatistician at Servier (France) since then. She was initially responsible for the statistical aspects of phase II and III clinical studies conducted in the therapeutic areas of neuropsychiatry and diabetes. She is now working on early phase studies in the field of oncology. In parallel of these activities, Stephanie developed skills on meta-analyses as well as on quantitative approaches for benefit-risk assessment on which she has been working on since 2011.
Several quantitative methodologies have been proposed to support decision-making in drug development. In particular, MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a useful tool to assess the benefit-risk balance of medicines according to the performances of the treatments on several criteria, accounting for the preferences of the decision-makers regarding the relative importance of these criteria. The EMA Benefit-Risk Methodology Project suggested that it is one of the most comprehensive among the quantitative methodologies they considered, and it is also recommended by several highly profiled expert groups. While MCDA requires the exact elicitation of the weights of the criteria according to the preferences of the decision-makers, extended versions of MCDA have been proposed, such as Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) and Dirichlet SMAA, where the weights are considered as random variables to account for some uncertainty in the weight assignment.
This webinar proposes a very concrete illustration of MCDA and of the extended models SMAA and Dirichlet SMAA using case-studies. We will present how to derive a benefit-risk utility score for each treatment, how to compare several treatments, how to present the results and how to conduct sensitivity analyses. The differences between the models will be highlighted, and some R code will be presented and shared after the presentation.
About the Presenter: Gaelle Saint-Hilary
Gaelle Saint-Hilary works in statistics for the pharmaceutical industry since 2006. She is currently completing a PhD on “Quantitative Decision-Making in Drug Development”, sponsored by Servier, at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). Before that, she worked as biostatistician in the industry, first at Servier for 5 years and then at Novartis Oncology for 4 years. She was responsible for the clinical development and the licensing of medicinal products in neuropsychiatry and leukemia, and her main scientific interests were benefit-risk assessment, network meta-analyses, multiple test procedures, simulation models of time-to-event data and survival analysis in presence of intercurrent events. The development and the promotion of quantitative methods for drug benefit-risk assessments is one of the major topics she considers during her PhD, with the final goal of enhancing decision-making throughout the drug life-cycle.
About the Presenter: Stephanie Cadour
Graduated in 2011, Stéphanie Cadour works as a biostatistician at Servier (France) since then. She was initially responsible for the statistical aspects of phase II and III clinical studies conducted in the therapeutic areas of neuropsychiatry and diabetes. She is now working on early phase studies in the field of oncology. In parallel of these activities, Stephanie developed skills on meta-analyses as well as on quantitative approaches for benefit-risk assessment on which she has been working on since 2011.
Several quantitative methodologies have been proposed to support decision-making in drug development. In particular, MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a useful tool to assess the benefit-risk balance of medicines according to the performances of the treatments on several criteria, accounting for the preferences of the decision-makers regarding the relative importance of these criteria. The EMA Benefit-Risk Methodology Project suggested that it is one of the most comprehensive among the quantitative methodologies they considered, and it is also recommended by several highly profiled expert groups. While MCDA requires the exact elicitation of the weights of the criteria according to the preferences of the decision-makers, extended versions of MCDA have been proposed, such as Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) and Dirichlet SMAA, where the weights are considered as random variables to account for some uncertainty in the weight assignment.
This webinar proposes a very concrete illustration of MCDA and of the extended models SMAA and Dirichlet SMAA using case-studies. We will present how to derive a benefit-risk utility score for each treatment, how to compare several treatments, how to present the results and how to conduct sensitivity analyses. The differences between the models will be highlighted, and some R code will be presented and shared after the presentation.
About the Presenter: Gaelle Saint-Hilary
Gaelle Saint-Hilary works in statistics for the pharmaceutical industry since 2006. She is currently completing a PhD on “Quantitative Decision-Making in Drug Development”, sponsored by Servier, at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). Before that, she worked as biostatistician in the industry, first at Servier for 5 years and then at Novartis Oncology for 4 years. She was responsible for the clinical development and the licensing of medicinal products in neuropsychiatry and leukemia, and her main scientific interests were benefit-risk assessment, network meta-analyses, multiple test procedures, simulation models of time-to-event data and survival analysis in presence of intercurrent events. The development and the promotion of quantitative methods for drug benefit-risk assessments is one of the major topics she considers during her PhD, with the final goal of enhancing decision-making throughout the drug life-cycle.
About the Presenter: Stephanie Cadour
Graduated in 2011, Stéphanie Cadour works as a biostatistician at Servier (France) since then. She was initially responsible for the statistical aspects of phase II and III clinical studies conducted in the therapeutic areas of neuropsychiatry and diabetes. She is now working on early phase studies in the field of oncology. In parallel of these activities, Stephanie developed skills on meta-analyses as well as on quantitative approaches for benefit-risk assessment on which she has been working on since 2011.
Several quantitative methodologies have been proposed to support decision-making in drug development. In particular, MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a useful tool to assess the benefit-risk balance of medicines according to the performances of the treatments on several criteria, accounting for the preferences of the decision-makers regarding the relative importance of these criteria. The EMA Benefit-Risk Methodology Project suggested that it is one of the most comprehensive among the quantitative methodologies they considered, and it is also recommended by several highly profiled expert groups. While MCDA requires the exact elicitation of the weights of the criteria according to the preferences of the decision-makers, extended versions of MCDA have been proposed, such as Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) and Dirichlet SMAA, where the weights are considered as random variables to account for some uncertainty in the weight assignment.
This webinar proposes a very concrete illustration of MCDA and of the extended models SMAA and Dirichlet SMAA using case-studies. We will present how to derive a benefit-risk utility score for each treatment, how to compare several treatments, how to present the results and how to conduct sensitivity analyses. The differences between the models will be highlighted, and some R code will be presented and shared after the presentation.
About the Presenter: Gaelle Saint-Hilary
Gaelle Saint-Hilary works in statistics for the pharmaceutical industry since 2006. She is currently completing a PhD on “Quantitative Decision-Making in Drug Development”, sponsored by Servier, at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). Before that, she worked as biostatistician in the industry, first at Servier for 5 years and then at Novartis Oncology for 4 years. She was responsible for the clinical development and the licensing of medicinal products in neuropsychiatry and leukemia, and her main scientific interests were benefit-risk assessment, network meta-analyses, multiple test procedures, simulation models of time-to-event data and survival analysis in presence of intercurrent events. The development and the promotion of quantitative methods for drug benefit-risk assessments is one of the major topics she considers during her PhD, with the final goal of enhancing decision-making throughout the drug life-cycle.
About the Presenter: Stephanie Cadour
Graduated in 2011, Stéphanie Cadour works as a biostatistician at Servier (France) since then. She was initially responsible for the statistical aspects of phase II and III clinical studies conducted in the therapeutic areas of neuropsychiatry and diabetes. She is now working on early phase studies in the field of oncology. In parallel of these activities, Stephanie developed skills on meta-analyses as well as on quantitative approaches for benefit-risk assessment on which she has been working on since 2011.
Several quantitative methodologies have been proposed to support decision-making in drug development. In particular, MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a useful tool to assess the benefit-risk balance of medicines according to the performances of the treatments on several criteria, accounting for the preferences of the decision-makers regarding the relative importance of these criteria. The EMA Benefit-Risk Methodology Project suggested that it is one of the most comprehensive among the quantitative methodologies they considered, and it is also recommended by several highly profiled expert groups. While MCDA requires the exact elicitation of the weights of the criteria according to the preferences of the decision-makers, extended versions of MCDA have been proposed, such as Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) and Dirichlet SMAA, where the weights are considered as random variables to account for some uncertainty in the weight assignment.
This webinar proposes a very concrete illustration of MCDA and of the extended models SMAA and Dirichlet SMAA using case-studies. We will present how to derive a benefit-risk utility score for each treatment, how to compare several treatments, how to present the results and how to conduct sensitivity analyses. The differences between the models will be highlighted, and some R code will be presented and shared after the presentation.
About the Presenter: Gaelle Saint-Hilary
Gaelle Saint-Hilary works in statistics for the pharmaceutical industry since 2006. She is currently completing a PhD on “Quantitative Decision-Making in Drug Development”, sponsored by Servier, at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). Before that, she worked as biostatistician in the industry, first at Servier for 5 years and then at Novartis Oncology for 4 years. She was responsible for the clinical development and the licensing of medicinal products in neuropsychiatry and leukemia, and her main scientific interests were benefit-risk assessment, network meta-analyses, multiple test procedures, simulation models of time-to-event data and survival analysis in presence of intercurrent events. The development and the promotion of quantitative methods for drug benefit-risk assessments is one of the major topics she considers during her PhD, with the final goal of enhancing decision-making throughout the drug life-cycle.
About the Presenter: Stephanie Cadour
Graduated in 2011, Stéphanie Cadour works as a biostatistician at Servier (France) since then. She was initially responsible for the statistical aspects of phase II and III clinical studies conducted in the therapeutic areas of neuropsychiatry and diabetes. She is now working on early phase studies in the field of oncology. In parallel of these activities, Stephanie developed skills on meta-analyses as well as on quantitative approaches for benefit-risk assessment on which she has been working on since 2011.
Several quantitative methodologies have been proposed to support decision-making in drug development. In particular, MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a useful tool to assess the benefit-risk balance of medicines according to the performances of the treatments on several criteria, accounting for the preferences of the decision-makers regarding the relative importance of these criteria. The EMA Benefit-Risk Methodology Project suggested that it is one of the most comprehensive among the quantitative methodologies they considered, and it is also recommended by several highly profiled expert groups. While MCDA requires the exact elicitation of the weights of the criteria according to the preferences of the decision-makers, extended versions of MCDA have been proposed, such as Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) and Dirichlet SMAA, where the weights are considered as random variables to account for some uncertainty in the weight assignment.
This webinar proposes a very concrete illustration of MCDA and of the extended models SMAA and Dirichlet SMAA using case-studies. We will present how to derive a benefit-risk utility score for each treatment, how to compare several treatments, how to present the results and how to conduct sensitivity analyses. The differences between the models will be highlighted, and some R code will be presented and shared after the presentation.
About the Presenter: Gaelle Saint-Hilary
Gaelle Saint-Hilary works in statistics for the pharmaceutical industry since 2006. She is currently completing a PhD on “Quantitative Decision-Making in Drug Development”, sponsored by Servier, at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy). Before that, she worked as biostatistician in the industry, first at Servier for 5 years and then at Novartis Oncology for 4 years. She was responsible for the clinical development and the licensing of medicinal products in neuropsychiatry and leukemia, and her main scientific interests were benefit-risk assessment, network meta-analyses, multiple test procedures, simulation models of time-to-event data and survival analysis in presence of intercurrent events. The development and the promotion of quantitative methods for drug benefit-risk assessments is one of the major topics she considers during her PhD, with the final goal of enhancing decision-making throughout the drug life-cycle.
About the Presenter: Stephanie Cadour
Graduated in 2011, Stéphanie Cadour works as a biostatistician at Servier (France) since then. She was initially responsible for the statistical aspects of phase II and III clinical studies conducted in the therapeutic areas of neuropsychiatry and diabetes. She is now working on early phase studies in the field of oncology. In parallel of these activities, Stephanie developed skills on meta-analyses as well as on quantitative approaches for benefit-risk assessment on which she has been working on since 2011.
Joint PSI/EFSPI Visualisation SIG 'Wonderful Wednesday' Webinars
Our monthly webinar explores examples of innovative data visualisations relevant to our day to day work. Each month a new dataset is provided from a clinical trial or other relevant example, and participants are invited to submit a graphic that communicates interesting and relevant characteristics of the data.
Topic: R Package Basics.
Our monthly webinar series allows attendees to gain practical knowledge and skills in open-source coding and tools, with a focus on applications in the pharmaceutical industry. This month’s session, “R Package Basics,” will introduce the fundamentals of working with R packages—covering how to install, load, and manage them effectively to support data analysis and reproducible research. The session will provide a solid starting point, clarify common misconceptions, and offer valuable resources for continued learning.
Date: Ongoing 6 month cycle beginning late April/early May 2026
Are you a member of PSI looking to further your career or help develop others - why not sign up to the PSI Mentoring scheme? You can expand your network, improve your leadership skills and learn from more senior colleagues in the industry.
PSI Book Club Lunch and Learn: Communicating with Clarity and Confidence
If you have read Ros Atkins’ book The Art of Explanation or want to listen to the BBC’s ‘Communicator in Chief’, you are invited to join the PSI Book Club Lunch and Learn, to discuss the content and application with the author, Ros Atkins. Having written the book within the context of the news industry, Ros is keen to hear how we have applied the ideas as statisticians within drug development and clinical trials. There will be dedicated time during the webinar to ASK THE AUTHOR any questions – don’t miss out on this exclusive PSI Book Club event!
Haven’t read the book yet? Pick up a copy today and join us.
Explanation - identifying and communicating what we want to say - is described as an art, in the title of his book. However, the creativity comes from Ros’ discernment in identifying and describing a clear step-by-step process to follow and practice. Readers can learn Ros’ rules, developed and polished throughout his career as a journalist, to help communicate complex written or spoken information clearly.
PSI Training Course: Effective Leadership – the keys to growing your leadership capabilities
This course will consist of three online half-day workshops. The first will be aimed at building trust, the backbone of leadership and a key to becoming effective. This is key to building a solid foundation.
The second will be on improving communication as a technical leader. This workshop will focus on communication strategies for different stakeholders and will involve tips on effective communication and how to develop the skills of active listening, coaching and what improv can teach us about good communication.
The final workshop will bring these two components together to help leaders become more influential. This will also focus on how to use Steven Covey’s 7-Habits, in particular Habits 4, 5 and 6, which are called the habits of communication.
The workshops will be interactive, allowing you to practice the concepts discussed. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. There will also be reflective time where you can think about what you are learning and how you might experiment with it.