Andy Nicholls

Andy Nicholls & Michael Rimler | Using R to Drive Agility in Clinical Reporting | RStudio (2020)

The R language is used extensively throughout the pharmaceutical industry. But its use within the tightly regulated clinical reporting workflows has remained limited. GSK Biostatistics has embarked upon a journey to embed R as a primary statistical analysis tool for clinical reporting.

Enabling R within a global department of over 600 Statisticians, Programmers and Data Scientists is challenging! It requires planning, patience, and a strong foundation that enables consistency across the enterprise. We invite you to learn more about how we achieved this at GSK.

You’ll learn about our tidyverse-centric training program, a future-ready Working Area for R Programming (WARP) environment, and a leading-edge R for Clinical Reporting (R4CR) initiative. The goal: help embed R in every-day clinical reporting output.

About Andy: Andy Nicholls has a long history with the R language and in Data Science, authoring the book ‘R in 24 Hours’. He is currently Head of Statistical Data Sciences within GSK’s Biostatistics department. One of his team’s main objectives is to embed the R language within Biostatistics; developing training materials, overseeing various adoption initiatives and provisioning a world-class environment for R . He is also the lead for the cross-industry R Validation Hub initiative that aims to support the use of R for regulatory work.

About Michael: Michael Rimler is a clinical programmer in GSK Biostatistics and passionate about influencing the evolving role of open source technologies and data science capabilities on clinical data analytics. He is involved with numerous internal initiatives aimed at moving the organization in this direction, including leading the effort to fully integrate R into the clinical reporting process. Michael is a co-lead of the Open Source Technologies in Clinical Research PHUSE working group project, has chaired a PHUSE US Single Day Event on Data Visualization, and will serve as a co-chair for the 2021 PHUSE US Connect