The President’s Symposium and President’s Lecture on Sunday, May 20, and Tuesday, May 22, are two must-attend ATS 2012 events.

President’s Symposium
The challenges in pursuit of identifying effective treatments for the highly complex and fatal idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) will be the focus of the Sunday, May 20, President’s Symposium, “Drugs, Regulatory Agencies and Guidelines: The Challenge of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.”

Speakers will emphasize the importance of clinically meaningful outcomes for afflicted patient to be used for primary endpoints in phase III IPF clinical trials. The benefits and the pitfalls of evidence-based versus consensus of expert opinion-based guidelines will be discussed. The audience will get better insight to the challenges of phase III IPF clinical trials and the approval process of drug/s indicated for the treatment of IPF by regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Europe.

President’s Lecture 

Michael Rosenblatt, MD

The President’s Lecture was established to provide a unique perspective on medicine and science from the vantage point of distinguished scientists, physicians and academicians.

Michael Rosenblatt, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer, Merck and Co, Whitehouse Station, N.J., will present the Tuesday, May 22, President’s Lecture “Academia and Industry: How Can We Work Together?”

Dr. Rosenblatt is Merck’s primary external advocate on medical issues and represents the voice of the patient inside Merck. He previously was dean of Tufts University School of Medicine and the George R. Minot professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, president of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.