Articles
For-Profit Conferences: Evil or Essential?
By Timothy Pratt, PhD
Originally published on ClinPage.com on April 29, 2008
There are a plethora of small conferences in our industry. They address topics as diverse as electronic patient-reported outcomes, (ePRO), eclinical technology, regulatory affairs, patient recruitment and outsourcing. These meetings can be quite broad (the Clinical Trials Congress) or sharply focused (The Advanced Import Compliance Forum). Many of these conferences are organized by fine companies such as IIR, CBI, Marcus Evans, ExL Pharma and others.
The primary differentiator between these small conferences and those conducted by professional societies such as DIA, SCDM, RAPS and ACRP is simple. The small meetings are conducted for profit. Society meetings are not. So what? Is the profit motive so bad? Perhaps.
Follow The Money
When a paper or abstract is submitted to a professional society meeting, what happens? Peer review. In society meetings, submissions are reviewed on merit in a blinded fashion. A submission's merit is evaluated on relevance, novel content, scientific integrity, lack of obvious bias, and other factors. If the submission warrants a presentation to support it, the lucky author gets onto the program. What's the cost involved to present? Nothing.
In for-profit conferences, however, the process is different. In the many I have been involved in, there is no submission process. Why? Because a check is all that's required. Most of the speaking opportunities are sold for thousands of dollars. Merit is not a factor. These opportunities are partially legitimized as "sponsorship" and bundled with marketing opportunities, like having a company logo on meeting brochures. But, to speak, almost always, one must pay.
Built-In Bias
Is pay-to-play the issue? It does rankle the academics among us, simply on principle. But it also introduces a disproportionate share of vendors on every agenda in the for-profit meeting landscape. Who else would pay $5,000, $10,000 or even more to speak for half an hour? Only vendors. So that's what for-profit conferences have a preponderance of: vendors.
Vendors (yes, I work for one) have their own financial calculus. They need a return on that hefty speaking fee. Thus it is inevitable, as day follows night, that small meeting attendees hear the vendor line on many issues. Objectivity is under severe threat under these circumstances.
