Two weeks ago I went to the Partnering For Cures (Nov. 13 – 15) conference at the Grand Hyatt in New York. After the experience, it is almost painful to admit that this was my first time attending. Developed by Faster Cures and the Milken Institute, the conference (now in existence for over eight years) brings together nearly 1,000 leaders from across the research ecosystem. The event’s goal is to forge partnerships dedicated to reducing death and suffering. And while I have attended other conferences that preach partnering, this conference, for some reason, felt distinctly different.

On November 14, 2016, Carolyn Johnson posted “Trump just dropped a big hint to the pharmaceutical industry” in a wonkblog for The Washington Post. I shared the article on LinkedIn (receiving over 415 views) noting, “It is very early days, so let’s not get too excited or too concerned. But let’s be aware and strive to be part of the solution for helping patients.” This seemed like a natural fit to share considering a large percentage of my network have close ties to biopharma, and the industry seems to have always been pretty closely linked to politics. This fact was never more apparent than at the industry conference I recently attended.

In January of this year, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) published a proposal for the sharing of clinical trial data. This groundbreaking proposition, if accepted, could upend the industry’s historic tendency toward data hoarding (i.e., sharing just enough clinical data in order to gain regulatory approval). This is because one of the ICMJE conditions not only requires researchers to proactively agree to share deidentified clinical data (as a condition of manuscript consideration by any of the ICMJE member journals), but to do so within six months of article publication.

Over the past few years, Allergan has garnered a wide variety of front-page news headlines, including a hostile takeover attempt by Valeant Pharmaceuticals and an activist investor, a subsequent $70 billion acquisition by Actavis, and a foiled $160 billion inversion merger with Pfizer. More recently, the company sold its generics business to Teva for just over $40 billion and is today rumored to be in the running for the possible acquisition of Biogen.

When thinking about all the hostility heaped on our industry — especially now during a U.S. presidential campaign — I couldn’t bear entering November on note of negativity. So, I started thinking about some of the “bright spots” that have occurred in this industry recently.

A little over a week ago, I posted a picture to my LinkedIn profile, which has since received over 60,000 views. And while there are mathematical calculations to officially determine when a post has gone viral, the fact that it has been viewed (and commented on) more widely than anything I have ever previously published is very humbling, especially considering the nature of the photo (i.e., a fallen U.S. service member) is far outside of what I typically write about (i.e., the biopharmaceutical industry). For though as a chief editor for Life Science Leader magazine and having come to learn a few things about social media, I never expected a post made through tears while still sitting in my car at the Buffalo airport, to have had such a profound impact on so many. Thousands have taken the time to comment, and in return, I have tried to respectfully reply to nearly all. So what have I learned from this experience. Plenty.

Author Steven Covey’s famous phrase, “To Live, To Love, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy” is what popped into my head while attending the Community of Hope’s Annual Dinner Auction as the invited guest of pharmaceutical industry icon, Fred Hassan. Twenty years ago Hassan founded this annual charity event that brings together two communities (i.e., social services and the biopharmaceutical industry) to do good in their own backyard (i.e., New Jersey and Pennsylvania). In his evening remarks to this year’s nearly 1,000 attendees, he explained that he created the event as a way of “supercharging” the Community of Hope’s fundraising efforts to help area homeless (including veterans).

Life Science Leader magazine was recently invited to attend The Economist’s War On Cancer healthcare forum in Boston, Sept. 28, 2016. Though all of the day’s sessions were intriguing, the one that got me up out of my chair to track down a speaker before his exit occurred at 4 p.m. Entitled, “Going Global – Examples Of Cancer Advances From Around The World,” the first person to speak was Kelvin Lee, M.D., immunology chairman from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Dr. Lee says that his experience in working with Cuba began quite by accident in 2011.

Have you ever attended a meeting and gotten the sense of being enlightened during someone’s presentation? I recently had such an experience at the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) annual meeting and expo in Atlanta, GA. But it was neither where I expected it, nor whom I expected it from (e.g.,, keynote speakers). Don’t get me wrong, Joseph Jimenez, Dr. Stephan Grupp, M.D., Ph.D., Nicole Pierson, and Fleming Dahl all gave fine and insightful keynotes. But my experience of enlightenment at ISPE occurred on the last day of this year’s meeting, in a rather lightly (disappointingly so) attended session.