News

Introduction

In this month's edition of our employee spotlight series, we're introducing Jim Chandler. Jim joined the MetrumRG team in April 2022, initially taking on the role of Principal DevOps Engineer I within our Technology Solutions department. He was soon promoted to Director of Systems and Security. Jim brings with him a wealth of IT expertise spanning over 25 years, having previously served as the Senior Engineer at Propeller Health and as a Principal DevOps professional at MedicaSoft. He earned a Bachelor's degree from Weber State University in Ogden, UT.

A Versatile Role

Jim plays a multifaceted role at MetrumRG, contributing significantly to our operations. He is primarily responsible for continuously improving our infrastructure, utilizing automation techniques, upholding stringent security standards, and ensuring the reliability of our processes. Jim leads by example, fostering an environment that empowers and motivates each team member to reach their maximum potential. Additionally, he serves as a crucial liaison, streamlining client onboarding, addressing technical needs, and navigating roadmap dependencies. Leveraging his extensive technical knowledge, Jim also provides valuable advisory support to our leadership team.

We are thrilled to announce that our CEO, Michelle Johnson, has been recognized as one of the finalists for the prestigious 2023 Women of Innovation® Awards. Organized by the Connecticut Technology Council (CTC), this award celebrates exceptional women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) who have made significant contributions to their respective fields. Michelle's remarkable achievements as a leader and innovator in the life sciences industry have earned her this well-deserved recognition.

A Strategic, Purpose-Driven Leader

Michelle is a highly accomplished executive with a proven track record in building strategy and operational excellence around a compelling vision. With over 20 years of experience spanning multiple industries, her expertise in operations, marketing, and business management has been invaluable in driving the success of MetrumRG.

Here at MetrumRG, in addition to our commitment to defeating disease through our day-to-day work, we also strive to make a tangible difference through a variety of community outreach activities. Most recently, we organized a special fundraising event for The Longest Day, the Alzheimer's Association's annual fundraising event.

In our Employee Spotlight this month, we proudly feature
Dr. Jia Kang, an extraordinary member of our team. With a deep passion for pharmacometrics and clinical pharmacology, Jia brings a unique perspective and an unwavering drive for excellence.

May is mental health awareness month and that’s a pretty big, broad, and personal topic. So many of us have been affected by our own mental health struggles or the struggles of those close to us, particularly since the COVID pandemic. Here, I share four key learnings based on  my personal experience as a caregiver and supporter. Years ago, I did not know how to navigate these issues. I am not an expert and the road has not been easy. There are still many difficult days, but I am not alone and I know help is available. 

MetrumRG is thrilled to announce the appointment of Stacey Tannenbaum, PhD., FISoP as our new Vice President, Scientific Engagement.

Passion is driven by purpose.

Many believe that you have to bring passion to the workplace. Yet, perhaps passion isn’t just an input, but also the result of a conviction that what you do is purposeful. As author and speaker Simon Sinek said so well, “Passion is an output developed by working toward something we believe in.”

“Don’t concern yourself with being the best. Instead, focus on doing your best and the rest will fall into place.”

It was 29 years ago today that my advisor, Sorell Schwartz, shared those words of wisdom with me upon the successful defense of my doctoral dissertation at Georgetown University. I am not sure that I completely understood the nuance of the message at that time, but years of experience and perspective have been enlightening. I’ve learned that a focus on doing your best is a powerful and liberating approach to science, business, and life in general.

The 29 years that followed were characterized by my best efforts to pursue the advocacy, growth, and application of the science of pharmacometrics in the fight against disease. In that time, my path wandered across experiences at the FDA, academia, a non-profit, and 3 different start-ups, including the last 18+ years leading Metrum Research Group… all at full speed and full intensity.

After nearly three decades of this sort of career intensity, it is time for me to slow down a bit and spend more time with my family and on other interests in my life. It’s also time to empower others around me to do their best. That is why, today, I am stepping down from the role of CEO at MetrumRG, and Michelle Johnson begins an exciting new journey as our incoming chief executive (https://news.metrumrg.com/press-release-2022-10).

A focus on doing your best is well aligned with the pursuit of a meaningful purpose and an impact that reaches far beyond any one individual, whereas a focus on being the best often becomes the purpose itself. Doing your best encourages a perspective of team vs. self, it emphasizes collaboration vs. competition, it allows for the priority to be impactful work vs. an ambitious assessment of standing.

It is in that spirit that Jeff Hane and I founded Metrum Research Group in 2004 as a company with a mission to improve health and defeat disease. The idea was to build a team of expert quantitative scientists, support them with leading-edge technology and business infrastructure, and empower the team to do their best… growing the science in our community and delivering high quality services to our biomedical industry partners. Of course, we intended to do all of this while creating a great place to work, too.

As with any business, there were challenges along the way with plenty of opportunities to learn and improve. As our team evolved and innovated, we learned of the tremendous potential for open science (open source software, open models, open courseware) to grow the community, our sphere of influence, and the market itself, sharing knowledge openly and creating opportunities for our business and the entire sector. We recognized the incredible synergy between quantitative sciences and emerging technologies, becoming the first in our industry to fully embrace high-performance cloud computing and ultimately creating a technology solutions business unit to complement our quantitative science services. Most importantly, we learned that our people are the most essential element of our business and we aimed to create a culture of empathy, transparency, trust, kindness, inclusion, and service to others.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to understand that doing my best as CEO of MetrumRG means doing everything I can to prepare our team and company for the future success of our mission, even if that means stepping aside so that others will have a greater opportunity to grow and rise to the challenge of doing their best.

It is, therefore, with full trust and confidence that I have asked Michelle Johnson to lead the next phase of the MetrumRG journey as our new Chief Executive Officer. As our Chief Operating Officer, Michelle was exceptional, demonstrating invaluable leadership skills and a strong understanding of our mission and culture. Michelle led business operations functions, was responsible for oversight of our finances, and created lasting relationships with our staff, our partners, and other stakeholders. As part of our executive team, she was an instrumental voice in every key business decision during her tenure. I know that Michelle is committed to the continued pursuit of the MetrumRG mission and founding principles and I’m excited to see how she will apply her unique talents, skills, and vision to the leadership of our company.

The company has never been in a better position to embrace the tremendous potential for quantitative sciences and technology in the biomedical industry. Michelle and our executive team, Bill Knebel, Matt Riggs and Joydeep Bhattacharyya, form a unified partnership, each bringing individual skills and knowledge that combine to form a solid foundation for the future of MetrumRG. Together they empower our team of expert scientists, service-driven operations staff, and innovative technology engineers to do their best work. I am confident that our team is as ready as ever to continue engaging in strong collaborations with our customers and community and to deliver lasting impact on patients’ lives.

My journey with MetrumRG has been incredibly rewarding. I thank God for this experience and for all the amazing people who have contributed along the way. I am grateful to our families, our employees past and present, our customers and business partners, academic collaborators and trainees, colleagues in regulatory agencies, and all the passionate scientists and engineers in our community. Your guidance, trust, loyalty, partnership, support, and friendship have enabled MetrumRG to make a difference and we look forward to your continued alliance long into the future.

It is truly a blessing to be able to turn over leadership of the company on my own terms at a time when MetrumRG’s future is incredibly bright. The mission to defeat disease is still unfulfilled and it will be my privilege to serve Michelle and the executive team in an advisory role on the board of directors as they continue the important work of MetrumRG. This will be new territory for me and I am committed to doing my best.

Metrum Research Group is excited to be a founding sponsor of the recently launched Connecticut chapter of Women In Bio (WIB).  WIB is a national organization supporting diversity and inclusion for women in the life sciences. Founded in 2002, WIB’s mission is to educate, engage, and empower women from the classroom to the boardroom. The organization’s pillars are Young Women In Bio’s STEM programming, the Boardroom Ready program, The Entrepreneur Center, and WIB’s growing Mentorship community.

MetrumRG is proud to continue to be an educational resource for our community by offering open, free pharmacometrics training through a variety of mediums. The range of courses and training content, listed here: metrumrg.com/courses/, includes a series of courses that were intended to progress from introductory through more advanced topics according to "MI" course number, e.g., MI210 (intro to pharmacometrics modeling and simulation) would be completed prior to MI212 (intermediate/advance topics), etc.

We have since added several "special topic" courses. In general, these are likely best done after completing the "MI" courses.

We also encourage individuals to periodically check our github site (github.com/metrumresearchgroup) -- we often post our workshop materials to this site.  For example, the hand-outs/slides for the two workshops we taught at ACoP10 (Fall 2019) have been posted here: