Sally Hollis Memorial Lectures
About the lectures
The Sally Hollis Lecture was established in 2021 in memory of Professor Sally Hollis, a much-loved and highly respected member of the Phastar team. Sally was a highly talented leader whose contribution was recognised as outstanding by all who worked with her. Each year a Sally Hollis Lecturer is chosen in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of medical statistics. The Lecturer alternates each year between academia and industry to represent the substantial cross-discipline impact that Sally had.
The 2023 lecture, titled 'Issues in data-monitoring for complex clinical trials', will be given by Professor Deborah Ashby, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College. For more information click here.
About Sally
Professor Sally Hollis started her career at Hope Hospital in Salford, where she established long-term research partnerships resulting in many co-authored papers and contributed to the setup of a national audit of the quality of diabetes care. In 1995 Sally joined Lancaster University as one of three founder members of the Medical Statistics Unit within the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, progressing to the position of Senior Lecturer.
Sally's knowledge of the NHS and wide-ranging experience of clinical research projects were critical to the unit’s collaborative work at the academic/non-academic interface. Sally played a major role in setting up the MSc in Medical Statistics at Lancaster University, which was the first of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics’ set of master’s programmes. During her 9 years at Lancaster University, Sally was also instrumental in the formation of a North West NHS research support unit, taking responsibility for all training and consultancy services in Lancashire and Cumbria, and she established and directed a North West programme of training for healthcare professionals in critical appraisal of research evidence. She was also statistical editor of the Cochrane Skin Group, Annals of Clinical Biochemistry and Diabetic Medicine. Sally left Lancaster in 2004 when she was head-hunted to a post in the pharmaceutical industry, at AstraZeneca’s Alderley Edge site. At AstraZeneca, Sally held numerous statistical leadership roles in drug development, across phase II and III, and lifecycle management.

Previous lectures

Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London
Issues in data-monitoring for complex clinical trials, by Prof. Deborah Ashby
About the talk:
During a clinical trial, accruing data is often seen in confidence by a data monitoring committee to evaluate whether early termination of the study or other modifications are needed in the light of emerging results. For a classical two-group trial with a single primary endpoint there are well-established statistical approaches. However, more complex trials, such as platform trials or trials with multiple endpoints, present different challenges. Such designs are now being used more regularly, including during the recent COVID-19 pandemic wher they rapidly informed clincal practice. We review these designs and current approaches to data-monitoring, as well as challenges that are emerging, and outline where further developments are needed.
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Roche
A Decade (nearly) of Data Sharing, by Rebecca Sudlow
About the talk:
2013 was a pivotal year in the data sharing landscape with the publication of the EFPIA/PhRMA “Principles for responsible clinical trial data sharing” (ref) and the announcement of EMA Policy 70. This presentation will reflect on the progress to date for data sharing. Has the data transparency movement fulfilled its promise? What have we learnt along the way? Where next?
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Prof. Peter Diggle
Lancaster University
Statistics Matters in the Time of COVID, by Prof. Peter Diggle
About the talk:
One of the few good things to come out of the COVID epidemic is a wider appreciation of the critically important contributions that statistical thinking can play in improving the health of the public, from fundamental research through to public health policy. Welcome though this is, it also presents a challenge to statisticians to engage in constructive criticism of badly presented statistics or muddled explanations of statistical findings that reach a much wider audience than would have been the case two years ago. In his presentation, Peter offers some personal reflections on my experience of becoming involved in a range of COVID-related projects, including the discussion of: the uses and abuses of mass testing; the importance of time and space; the challenge of synthesising information from multiple data-sources; the balance between individual privacy and public good.
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Expert study design, statistical analysis, data science, data capture, and reporting for clinical trials
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