Kenneth I Kaitin to Retire from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development after Leading the Organization for 23 Years

BOSTON, Dec. 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD), the leading independent source of authoritative analyses on the nature and pace of pharmaceutical development, today announced that Kenneth I Kaitin will retire at the end of December after 35 years with the organization, including serving as its director since 1998.

Kenneth A. Getz, currently professor and deputy director of Tufts CSDD, will succeed Kaitin as the Center’s director in January.

Kaitin, an internationally recognized expert in drug development science and policy, will continue to serve as a senior fellow at Tufts CSDD, and will retain his appointment as advisory professor at Shanghai Medical College at Fudan University. The author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, commentaries, and reviews, and the recipient of numerous awards, Kaitin has provided public testimony at U.S. Congressional hearings and served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on bioterror countermeasures. Kaitin is currently editor-in-chief of Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology.

Under Kaitin’s leadership, the Tufts Center established a multidisciplinary approach to assessing critical drug development issues with a global perspective, and expanded its long string of breakthrough research analyses. Among its widely referenced studies are those relating to the cost to develop a new pharmaceutical product, benchmarks on clinical development times and success rates, R&D strategy and performance, and the impact of U.S. legislative and regulatory initiatives designed to expedite drug development and regulatory review.

He also broadened the focus of CSDD’s Postgraduate Course in Clinical Pharmacology, Drug Development, and Regulation—held annually since 1974 and attended by a wide range of industry, academic, and government professionals—to embrace all aspects of the pharmaceutical lifecycle: from translational research, clinical trial design, and drug regulation, to manufacturing, marketing, pharmacoeconomics, and finance. Kaitin also created CSDD’s Leadership for Drug Development Teams Course, which has been a perennially popular annual program that has trained industry professionals for 18 years.

Kaitin established the R&D Management Forum, a roundtable bringing together experts from industry, government, and other organizations, to discuss current drug development challenges. In addition, Kaitin launched the Tufts CSDD Impact Report and Tufts CSDD R&D Management Report to expand the dissemination of research findings and insights within the broader drug development community.

“I couldn’t be prouder of Tufts CSDD’s accomplishments during my tenure as director,” said Kaitin. “The group has tackled complex and timely issues in drug development and regulation and, in the process, earned global recognition for its scholarly, data-driven analyses.

“I believe that this is the ideal time for Ken Getz to take over the reins of the Tufts Center. A major focus in industrial and regulatory sectors over the past decade has been on improving R&D performance reducing operational inefficiencies, and boosting overall productivity, and Ken has established himself as a leader in that space.”

Getz, who joined CSDD in 2004, oversees and directs all of its grant funded research studies. He is recognized internationally as an expert on pharmaceutical R&D management, protocol design, clinical trial execution, outsourcing, investigative site management and patient engagement.

“It has been such an honor to be a member of the Tufts Center team under Ken Kaitin’s leadership,” said Getz. “I look forward to stepping into this new role and advancing the Center’s mission of improving the performance, efficiency and productivity of pharmaceutical innovation.”

In addition to his scholarly research activity at CSDD, Getz has published extensively in peer-review journals and the trade press, and has authored several books and book chapters. Getz is board chair of the Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation, a Boston-based nonprofit organization he founded to educate the public, patients, medical/research communities, the media, and policy makers about clinical research. He also founded CenterWatch, a leading publisher in the clinical trials industry and one of several companies that he has sold. He holds a number of board appointments in the private and public sectors.

Getz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brandeis University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

ABOUT THE TUFTS CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT

Tufts CSDD was founded in 1976 at the University of Rochester by Dr. Louis Lasagna, widely regarded as a research pioneer on drug development issues, to provide objective analyses and add an academic voice to policy debates on biopharmaceutical innovation. In 1984, CSDD moved to Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston

Since its inception, and continuing today, CSDD research has informed and influenced drug developers, regulators, policy makers, academics, contract service providers, and investors worldwide, and its findings continue to be cited around the globe by a broad range of industry, academic, business, and trade publications. CSDD hosts symposia, workshops, and public forums, and publishes the widely respected Tufts CSDD Impact Report, a bi-monthly newsletter providing analysis and insight into critical drug development issues.