A man in his sixties with acute dyspnoea, chest pain and syncope.

A man in his sixties was admitted as an emergency due to dyspnoea, chest pain and syncope. The medical team quickly established that he was in a state of shock. Multidisciplinary management resulted in successful diagnosis and treatment of a condition with high mortality.

Benchmarking the Vendor Qualification Process.

The vendor qualification assessment (VQA) process is regarded as expensive and time consuming but there is no quantitative data characterizing and benchmarking this process. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (Tufts CSDD)-in collaboration with the Avoca Group and 13 pharmaceutical, biotechnology and contract research organizations-conducted a survey of 120 unique companies to gather baseline data. The study results confirm that companies are investing substantial time and resources to support a high and growing volume of vendor qualifications and re-qualifications each year.