PSI Training Course: R for Clinical Trial Statisticians

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.

Open-Source Lunch Bites

Our monthly webinar will allow attendees to gain practical knowledge and skills in Open-Source coding and tools, with a focus on applications in the pharmaceutical industry. The sessions will provide starting points in a number of areas, correct any common misconceptions and provide valuable resources for further learning.

PSI Journal Club: Randomization

Date: Tuesday 9th September 2025 Join us to hear Sofia Weigle and Weng-Kee Wong present their recent work.

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
Andrew Nicholls	Andy Nicholls has been an R user and advocate for over 15 years. He is currently Head of Data Science within GSK’s Biostatistics function and responsible for driving R adoption, with a remit covering systems, tools and training. As part of this role, Andy developed GSK’s internal original world-wide R training programme which forms the backbone of this PSI course. Andy’s professional background includes 6 years working for Mango Solutions, a niche Statistics and Data Science consultancy that specialised in R. During his time at Mango, Andy taught several hundred face to face and virtual R training courses. And in 2015 he co-authored, “R in 24 Hours” with two Mango colleagues. Andy has an MMath Mathematics from University of Bath and MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine from University of Southampton.
Alanah Jonas	Alanah attended the University of Nottingham, where she earned her integrated master’s degree in Mathematics with Statistics in 2018. Upon completing her degree, she secured a graduate position at Amadeus Software. During her tenure there, she underwent three months of intensive SAS training before being placed at GSK. Her journey at GSK began in the Biostatistics department, specifically in Clinical Programming. Over the course of three years, she honed her expertise in this specialized field. She seized the opportunity for a secondment in the Statistical Data Science and Innovation Hub, serving as a Principal Data Scientist. During her time at GSK, Alanah has had first-hand experience in both delivering and participating in various R training methods. Most recently, she has been working on the AccelerateR initiative where she provides small group, tailored, just in time training for study teams with mentoring and support.

Speaker	Biography
Andrew Nicholls	Andy Nicholls has been an R user and advocate for over 15 years. He is currently Head of Data Science within GSK’s Biostatistics function and responsible for driving R adoption, with a remit covering systems, tools and training. As part of this role, Andy developed GSK’s internal original world-wide R training programme which forms the backbone of this PSI course. Andy’s professional background includes 6 years working for Mango Solutions, a niche Statistics and Data Science consultancy that specialised in R. During his time at Mango, Andy taught several hundred face to face and virtual R training courses. And in 2015 he co-authored, “R in 24 Hours” with two Mango colleagues. Andy has an MMath Mathematics from University of Bath and MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine from University of Southampton.
Alanah Jonas	Alanah attended the University of Nottingham, where she earned her integrated master’s degree in Mathematics with Statistics in 2018. Upon completing her degree, she secured a graduate position at Amadeus Software. During her tenure there, she underwent three months of intensive SAS training before being placed at GSK. Her journey at GSK began in the Biostatistics department, specifically in Clinical Programming. Over the course of three years, she honed her expertise in this specialized field. She seized the opportunity for a secondment in the Statistical Data Science and Innovation Hub, serving as a Principal Data Scientist. During her time at GSK, Alanah has had first-hand experience in both delivering and participating in various R training methods. Most recently, she has been working on the AccelerateR initiative where she provides small group, tailored, just in time training for study teams with mentoring and support.

Speaker	Biography
Andrew Nicholls	Andy Nicholls has been an R user and advocate for over 15 years. He is currently Head of Data Science within GSK’s Biostatistics function and responsible for driving R adoption, with a remit covering systems, tools and training. As part of this role, Andy developed GSK’s internal original world-wide R training programme which forms the backbone of this PSI course. Andy’s professional background includes 6 years working for Mango Solutions, a niche Statistics and Data Science consultancy that specialised in R. During his time at Mango, Andy taught several hundred face to face and virtual R training courses. And in 2015 he co-authored, “R in 24 Hours” with two Mango colleagues. Andy has an MMath Mathematics from University of Bath and MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine from University of Southampton.
Alanah Jonas	Alanah attended the University of Nottingham, where she earned her integrated master’s degree in Mathematics with Statistics in 2018. Upon completing her degree, she secured a graduate position at Amadeus Software. During her tenure there, she underwent three months of intensive SAS training before being placed at GSK. Her journey at GSK began in the Biostatistics department, specifically in Clinical Programming. Over the course of three years, she honed her expertise in this specialized field. She seized the opportunity for a secondment in the Statistical Data Science and Innovation Hub, serving as a Principal Data Scientist. During her time at GSK, Alanah has had first-hand experience in both delivering and participating in various R training methods. Most recently, she has been working on the AccelerateR initiative where she provides small group, tailored, just in time training for study teams with mentoring and support.

Speaker	Biography
Andrew Nicholls	Andy Nicholls has been an R user and advocate for over 15 years. He is currently Head of Data Science within GSK’s Biostatistics function and responsible for driving R adoption, with a remit covering systems, tools and training. As part of this role, Andy developed GSK’s internal original world-wide R training programme which forms the backbone of this PSI course. Andy’s professional background includes 6 years working for Mango Solutions, a niche Statistics and Data Science consultancy that specialised in R. During his time at Mango, Andy taught several hundred face to face and virtual R training courses. And in 2015 he co-authored, “R in 24 Hours” with two Mango colleagues. Andy has an MMath Mathematics from University of Bath and MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine from University of Southampton.
Alanah Jonas	Alanah attended the University of Nottingham, where she earned her integrated master’s degree in Mathematics with Statistics in 2018. Upon completing her degree, she secured a graduate position at Amadeus Software. During her tenure there, she underwent three months of intensive SAS training before being placed at GSK. Her journey at GSK began in the Biostatistics department, specifically in Clinical Programming. Over the course of three years, she honed her expertise in this specialized field. She seized the opportunity for a secondment in the Statistical Data Science and Innovation Hub, serving as a Principal Data Scientist. During her time at GSK, Alanah has had first-hand experience in both delivering and participating in various R training methods. Most recently, she has been working on the AccelerateR initiative where she provides small group, tailored, just in time training for study teams with mentoring and support.

Speaker	Biography
Andrew Nicholls	Andy Nicholls has been an R user and advocate for over 15 years. He is currently Head of Data Science within GSK’s Biostatistics function and responsible for driving R adoption, with a remit covering systems, tools and training. As part of this role, Andy developed GSK’s internal original world-wide R training programme which forms the backbone of this PSI course. Andy’s professional background includes 6 years working for Mango Solutions, a niche Statistics and Data Science consultancy that specialised in R. During his time at Mango, Andy taught several hundred face to face and virtual R training courses. And in 2015 he co-authored, “R in 24 Hours” with two Mango colleagues. Andy has an MMath Mathematics from University of Bath and MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine from University of Southampton.
Alanah Jonas	Alanah attended the University of Nottingham, where she earned her integrated master’s degree in Mathematics with Statistics in 2018. Upon completing her degree, she secured a graduate position at Amadeus Software. During her tenure there, she underwent three months of intensive SAS training before being placed at GSK. Her journey at GSK began in the Biostatistics department, specifically in Clinical Programming. Over the course of three years, she honed her expertise in this specialized field. She seized the opportunity for a secondment in the Statistical Data Science and Innovation Hub, serving as a Principal Data Scientist. During her time at GSK, Alanah has had first-hand experience in both delivering and participating in various R training methods. Most recently, she has been working on the AccelerateR initiative where she provides small group, tailored, just in time training for study teams with mentoring and support.

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