Pertti Neuvonen Symposium

The Finnish Society of Clinical Pharmacology organized the Pertti Neuvonen Symposium in November 2021

The Finnish Society of Clinical Pharmacology (FSCP) and University of Helsinki organised a two-day scientific symposium to honour the late professor Pertti J. Neuvonen. The event was entitled Pertti Neuvonen Symposium – Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics: from Research to Clinical Practice. The Symposium was planned as a hybrid meeting taking place at Biomedicum Helsinki on November 29-30, 2021. Ultimately, due to the progressing COVID-19 pandemic and new local restrictions, the event was transformed to an online-only symposium with a notice of just a couple of days. The event was supported by the Nordic Association for the Publication of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology (BCPT).

The purpose of the Symposium was to provide a high-quality international-level event focusing on science and to thereby continue the traditions of professor Neuvonen. He was recognized worldwide for his outstanding scientific achievements, but his commitment and efforts to develop education and specialization in clinical pharmacology in Finland may have been less well-known. In the Symposium, we introduced the new Clinical Pharmacology Fund that has just been established to support education in clinical pharmacology at the University of Helsinki; the Fund is now open for future donations to support the discipline. Therefore, we believe that the symposium was an ideal way to honour Pertti Neuvonen and his legacy.

There were approximately 140 participants in the symposium, including almost 20 international attendees. The two-day program comprised presentations by about 20 invited speakers, including eight speakers from countries outside Finland. The topics included, for example, evaluation of polypharmacotherapy, deprescribing and clinical pharmacology services, personalized therapy and precision medicine, novel tools for phenotyping and genotyping, drug-drug interactions, pharmacokinetic modelling, the significance of the glymphatic system in pharmacology and current prospects in teratology research. As a traditional poster session could not be arranged, all abstract authors were also given a possibility to present orally. According to post-symposium feedback, the participants enjoyed the high quality of presentations, interesting and clinically relevant selection of topics and successful technical implementation of the remote symposium.

With this memorable experience in mind, we are looking forward to better times and hope to see many of our clinical pharmacology colleagues in person in our future meetings: NORPM2023 in Turku and EACPT2025 in Helsinki!

Janne Backman

Chairman, FSCP

Meeting organizing committee:

Minna Lehtisalo, Anssi Mykkänen, Feng Deng, Ulla Riihimäki, Aleksi Tornio, Jari Lilja, Taavi Kaartinen, Mikko Niemi, Outi Lapatto-Reiniluoto, Katriina Tarkiainen