PSI Journal Club: Bayesian Approaches in Efficacy and Safety

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.

PSI Book Club - The Art of Explanation: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence

Develop your non-technical skills by reading The Art of Explanation by Ros Atkins and joining the Sept-Dec 2025 book club. You will be invited to join facilitated discussions of the concepts and ideas and apply skills from the book in-between sessions.

PSI Training Course: Pediatric Extrapolation

This course is aimed at biostatisticians with no or some pediatric drug development experience who are interested to further their understanding. We will give you an introduction to the pediatric drug development landscape. This will include identifying the key regulations and processes governing pediatric development, a discussion on the needs and challenges when conducting pediatric research and a focus on the ways to overcome these challenges from a statistical perspective.

PSI Career Young Virtual Event (Q3 2025)

This networking event is aimed at statisticians that are new to the pharmaceutical industry who wish to meet colleagues from different companies and backgrounds.

Pre-Clinical SIG Webinar: AI agents for drug discovery and development

AI agents are large language models equipped with tools that can autonomously tackle challenging tasks. This talk will explore how generative AI agents can enable biomedical discovery.

EFSPI/PSI Causal Inference SIG Webinar: Instrumental Variable Methods

The webinar is targeted at statisticians working in the pharmaceutical industry, and the objective is to 1) provide a basic understanding of IV methodology including how it relates to causal inference, and 2) present two inspirational pharma-relevant applications.

PSI Pre-Clinical Workshop - October 2025

The Pre-Clinical Special Interest Group (SIG) Workshop 2025 will take place over two half-days on 7 - 8 October in Verona, Italy, bringing together experts from industry, academia, and regulatory institutions to discuss key challenges and innovations in pre-clinical research.

PSI Training Course: Introduction to Machine Learning

Four sessions will include ML foundation (including an introduction, data exploration for ML and dimensionality reduction and feature selection), Supervised learning (including support vector machines and model evaluation and interpretation), model optimization and unsupervised learning (including clustering) and advanced topics (including neural networks, deep learning and large language models).

PSI/EFSPI Vaccines Statistics Workshop

The program will feature insightful sessions led by distinguished invited speakers, alongside a poster session showcasing the latest advancements in the field. Further details will be provided.

PSI Careers - MEDMathS: Medicine Empowered by Data, Maths and Statistics

Date: Wednesday 5th November 2025 A careers talk about medical statistics and how it plays a crucial role in developing new medicines

PSI Medical Statistics Student Careers Event 2025

Date: 19 November 2025 This event is aimed at students with an interest in the field of Medical Statistics, for example within pharmaceuticals, healthcare and/or medical research.

PSI Career Young Virtual Event (Q4 2025)

This networking event is aimed at statisticians that are new to the pharmaceutical industry who wish to meet colleagues from different companies and backgrounds.

Speaker	Biography
Peter Thall	Peter Thall is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Society for Clinical Trials, and received the Don Owen Award in 2014. Dr. Thall has over 300 publications in the statistical and medical literature, including the books Bayesian Designs for Phase I-II Clinical Trials (2016) and Statistical Remedies for Medical Researchers (2020). His research areas include Bayesian statistics, clinical trial design, precision medicine, and dynamic treatment regimes.
Kristian Brock	Kristian is a methodologist statistician interested in Bayesian and computational methods currently working in AstraZeneca’s Statistical Innovation team. He started his biostatistical career in 2014 at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham, focusing mostly on phase I and II trials in cancer. Whilst at Birmingham, he obtained a PhD in clinical trial methodology, publishing work on seamless phase I/II dose-finding, and incorporating a predictive biomarker in a phase II trial with co-primary efficacy and toxicity outcomes. In 2020, he joined UCB as a methodologist. There he built tools to calculate trial probability of success, and published a Bayesian method for monitoring safety signals in ongoing blinded studies using a meta-analytic predictive prior. He is a keen programmer, with a particular interest in R, Stan, Julia, Turing. He has published CRAN packages on dose-finding methods. Outside of work, Kristian enjoys travelling, cycling and sailing.
Chair
Sebastian Weber	Sebastian Weber is working as Director in the Department of Advanced Methodology and Data Science at Novartis. He has worked extensivley on enabling the use of historical (control) information in clinical trials through consulting and working on tools to facilitate the application of historical control information from trial design to analysis. Furthermore, Sebastian has experience in designing Oncology phase I dose-escalation trails and is also involved in pediatric drug development programs, where he applies extrapolation concepts. His research interests include the application of pharmacometrics in statistics, model-based drug development and application of Bayesian methods for drug development.

Speaker	Biography
Peter Thall	Peter Thall is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Society for Clinical Trials, and received the Don Owen Award in 2014. Dr. Thall has over 300 publications in the statistical and medical literature, including the books Bayesian Designs for Phase I-II Clinical Trials (2016) and Statistical Remedies for Medical Researchers (2020). His research areas include Bayesian statistics, clinical trial design, precision medicine, and dynamic treatment regimes.
Kristian Brock	Kristian is a methodologist statistician interested in Bayesian and computational methods currently working in AstraZeneca’s Statistical Innovation team. He started his biostatistical career in 2014 at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham, focusing mostly on phase I and II trials in cancer. Whilst at Birmingham, he obtained a PhD in clinical trial methodology, publishing work on seamless phase I/II dose-finding, and incorporating a predictive biomarker in a phase II trial with co-primary efficacy and toxicity outcomes. In 2020, he joined UCB as a methodologist. There he built tools to calculate trial probability of success, and published a Bayesian method for monitoring safety signals in ongoing blinded studies using a meta-analytic predictive prior. He is a keen programmer, with a particular interest in R, Stan, Julia, Turing. He has published CRAN packages on dose-finding methods. Outside of work, Kristian enjoys travelling, cycling and sailing.
Chair
Sebastian Weber	Sebastian Weber is working as Director in the Department of Advanced Methodology and Data Science at Novartis. He has worked extensivley on enabling the use of historical (control) information in clinical trials through consulting and working on tools to facilitate the application of historical control information from trial design to analysis. Furthermore, Sebastian has experience in designing Oncology phase I dose-escalation trails and is also involved in pediatric drug development programs, where he applies extrapolation concepts. His research interests include the application of pharmacometrics in statistics, model-based drug development and application of Bayesian methods for drug development.

Speaker	Biography
Peter Thall	Peter Thall is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Society for Clinical Trials, and received the Don Owen Award in 2014. Dr. Thall has over 300 publications in the statistical and medical literature, including the books Bayesian Designs for Phase I-II Clinical Trials (2016) and Statistical Remedies for Medical Researchers (2020). His research areas include Bayesian statistics, clinical trial design, precision medicine, and dynamic treatment regimes.
Kristian Brock	Kristian is a methodologist statistician interested in Bayesian and computational methods currently working in AstraZeneca’s Statistical Innovation team. He started his biostatistical career in 2014 at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham, focusing mostly on phase I and II trials in cancer. Whilst at Birmingham, he obtained a PhD in clinical trial methodology, publishing work on seamless phase I/II dose-finding, and incorporating a predictive biomarker in a phase II trial with co-primary efficacy and toxicity outcomes. In 2020, he joined UCB as a methodologist. There he built tools to calculate trial probability of success, and published a Bayesian method for monitoring safety signals in ongoing blinded studies using a meta-analytic predictive prior. He is a keen programmer, with a particular interest in R, Stan, Julia, Turing. He has published CRAN packages on dose-finding methods. Outside of work, Kristian enjoys travelling, cycling and sailing.
Chair
Sebastian Weber	Sebastian Weber is working as Director in the Department of Advanced Methodology and Data Science at Novartis. He has worked extensivley on enabling the use of historical (control) information in clinical trials through consulting and working on tools to facilitate the application of historical control information from trial design to analysis. Furthermore, Sebastian has experience in designing Oncology phase I dose-escalation trails and is also involved in pediatric drug development programs, where he applies extrapolation concepts. His research interests include the application of pharmacometrics in statistics, model-based drug development and application of Bayesian methods for drug development.

Speaker	Biography
Peter Thall	Peter Thall is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Society for Clinical Trials, and received the Don Owen Award in 2014. Dr. Thall has over 300 publications in the statistical and medical literature, including the books Bayesian Designs for Phase I-II Clinical Trials (2016) and Statistical Remedies for Medical Researchers (2020). His research areas include Bayesian statistics, clinical trial design, precision medicine, and dynamic treatment regimes.
Kristian Brock	Kristian is a methodologist statistician interested in Bayesian and computational methods currently working in AstraZeneca’s Statistical Innovation team. He started his biostatistical career in 2014 at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham, focusing mostly on phase I and II trials in cancer. Whilst at Birmingham, he obtained a PhD in clinical trial methodology, publishing work on seamless phase I/II dose-finding, and incorporating a predictive biomarker in a phase II trial with co-primary efficacy and toxicity outcomes. In 2020, he joined UCB as a methodologist. There he built tools to calculate trial probability of success, and published a Bayesian method for monitoring safety signals in ongoing blinded studies using a meta-analytic predictive prior. He is a keen programmer, with a particular interest in R, Stan, Julia, Turing. He has published CRAN packages on dose-finding methods. Outside of work, Kristian enjoys travelling, cycling and sailing.
Chair
Sebastian Weber	Sebastian Weber is working as Director in the Department of Advanced Methodology and Data Science at Novartis. He has worked extensivley on enabling the use of historical (control) information in clinical trials through consulting and working on tools to facilitate the application of historical control information from trial design to analysis. Furthermore, Sebastian has experience in designing Oncology phase I dose-escalation trails and is also involved in pediatric drug development programs, where he applies extrapolation concepts. His research interests include the application of pharmacometrics in statistics, model-based drug development and application of Bayesian methods for drug development.

Speaker	Biography
Peter Thall	Peter Thall is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Society for Clinical Trials, and received the Don Owen Award in 2014. Dr. Thall has over 300 publications in the statistical and medical literature, including the books Bayesian Designs for Phase I-II Clinical Trials (2016) and Statistical Remedies for Medical Researchers (2020). His research areas include Bayesian statistics, clinical trial design, precision medicine, and dynamic treatment regimes.
Kristian Brock	Kristian is a methodologist statistician interested in Bayesian and computational methods currently working in AstraZeneca’s Statistical Innovation team. He started his biostatistical career in 2014 at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham, focusing mostly on phase I and II trials in cancer. Whilst at Birmingham, he obtained a PhD in clinical trial methodology, publishing work on seamless phase I/II dose-finding, and incorporating a predictive biomarker in a phase II trial with co-primary efficacy and toxicity outcomes. In 2020, he joined UCB as a methodologist. There he built tools to calculate trial probability of success, and published a Bayesian method for monitoring safety signals in ongoing blinded studies using a meta-analytic predictive prior. He is a keen programmer, with a particular interest in R, Stan, Julia, Turing. He has published CRAN packages on dose-finding methods. Outside of work, Kristian enjoys travelling, cycling and sailing.
Chair
Sebastian Weber	Sebastian Weber is working as Director in the Department of Advanced Methodology and Data Science at Novartis. He has worked extensivley on enabling the use of historical (control) information in clinical trials through consulting and working on tools to facilitate the application of historical control information from trial design to analysis. Furthermore, Sebastian has experience in designing Oncology phase I dose-escalation trails and is also involved in pediatric drug development programs, where he applies extrapolation concepts. His research interests include the application of pharmacometrics in statistics, model-based drug development and application of Bayesian methods for drug development.

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