Program for Appropriate Technology in Health

NEW YORK & TOKYO--( BUSINESS WIRE )--UiPath (NYSE: PATH), a leading enterprise automation software company, today announced that Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, a leading Japanese pharmaceuticals company, has turned to the UiPath Business Automation Platform to improve business operational efficiency that would not have been possible with only human labor. Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma aims to create hope for anyone facing an illness. The industry continues to face challenges in developing valuable drugs that truly meet the needs of patients, which makes new drug development more difficult year by year. By introducing UiPath, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma is promoting digital technology reform in its new drug development and overall business productivity. Since implementing UiPath in 2019, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma has created more than 500 workflows that automate various tasks. Automation has saved a total of 70,000 hours and has produced significant results in operational efficiency. However, the results are not limited to operational efficiency; it has also enabled several tasks that human labor could have yet to realize. One such task is to contact prospective employee retirees regarding offboarding procedures. Previously, prospective retirees were contacted once every six months. However, the Human Resources (HR) Department received numerous monthly inquiries from these retirees, which increased the department’s workload. As a result, the HR team now entrusts software robots with the task of contacting retirees every month, which has not only reduced workloads, but has also drastically improved retiree satisfaction. In the research and development field, they have also developed workflows that add value to its business operations. For example, a workflow was created to crawl academic and society websites, sending an e-mail to the individual in charge when there is updated information. Another workflow extracts necessary information from reports to support the creation of an application form that aggregates many reports prepared by researchers and submits them to the proper medical authorities. Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Provision Corporation (Headquarters: Osaka, Japan; President: Kei Goto) assumed the RPA Center of Excellence, which consolidates all administrative tasks, including pharmaceutical information, accounting, general affairs, and HR for companies under the entire Group into a single point of contact. From the beginning, in anticipation of an era of no-code/low-code development that does not use programming languages, the introduction of the system proceeded on a “self-driven” basis, where on-site employees are encouraged to identify and automate target tasks on their own. Rob Enslin, Co-Chief Executive Officer, UiPath said, “Today’s automation goes well beyond RPA – it’s the new way of operating and the new way of innovating. To this end, we are pleased to play a key role in Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Group’s automation journey by helping them achieve operational efficiency and improve their digital capabilities. By augmenting their automation program with citizen development, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma can future-proof their business and build a hybrid human-digital workforce of the future.” To date, the Center of Excellence has created a unique training program and has encouraged employees to participate actively. The goal is to develop a wide range of citizen developers, including those who can develop workflows and determine which operations are suitable for automation. They have also been developing and operating a new learning curriculum for training advanced developers in cooperation with UiPath. As a next step, the business is planning to further develop this program and its digital human resources, as well as create value-added operations to provide reskilling opportunities for senior personnel. About UiPath UiPath has a vision to deliver the Fully Automated Enterprise™, one where companies use automation to unlock their greatest potential. UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to rapidly scale digital business operations.

After almost exactly a year since the FDA’s top two vaccine leaders left in protest over boosters-for-all, the FDA has now named former Merck VP David Kaslow as its new director of CBER’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review. Kaslow will replace acting director Peter Marks (who is also head of CBER) after he had to step in to replace Marion Gruber, who resigned suddenly alongside her deputy Philip Krause in late 2021 after they disagreed with the agency’s booster strategy. After quitting with little explanation after decades at the agency, Gruber and Krause (whose Twitter bio now reads “not anti-booster”) penned a Washington Post op-ed in which they said they didn’t “think boosters for all are necessary, even with the emergence of the omicron variant.” They also co-authored an article in the Lancet discussing the available vaccine data, saying it “did not support widespread boosting.” Nevertheless, the boosters-for-all strategy went forward, and data now suggest that the third shot did save lives. But that focus on equal access to vaccines globally, which Gruber and Krause also discussed early on, will likely play a role in Kaslow’s approach considering his recent work at the nonprofit PATH, which focuses on health equity, and where he served most recently as CSO. Kaslow brings with him more than 35 years of experience in vaccine R&D, including more than a decade at the nonprofit PATH, as well as a VP and head of vaccine integration and management at Merck, and founder of the Malaria Vaccine Development Unit at NIH, where he spent 13 years. Kaslow will assume his new role on October 11 at a key moment for the agency as the current round of bivalent booster shots for Covid-19 are being distributed , as key human data begins to trickle in on these vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, and as the next round of flu shots (2023) will go before VRBPAC. “David has been an incredible leader to the PATH team for the entirety of his decade-long tenure. His work has led to thousands of improved lives and many more averted illnesses and deaths,” Nikolaj Gilbert, president and CEO of PATH, said in a statement . “His expertise and scientific acumen are outshined only by his compassion, respect for his colleagues within and outside PATH, and his reputation as a principled leader and public health advocate.

The Food and Drug Administration has appointed a new vaccine review head, naming the top scientist at a global public health non-profit to replace Marion Gruber, who retired last year amid her opposition to Biden administration efforts to quickly roll out COVID-19 vaccine boosters.David Kaslow, chief science officer for PATH, will become the director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review on Oct. 11. He takes over for Peter Marks, director of FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, who has served as acting director of the vaccine review office since Gruber left on Oct. 31, 2021.Kaslow has a long background in vaccine research, development and distribution. Before joining PATH, he led vaccines and infectious disease at Merck & Co.s research laboratories for nearly six years and was an advisor to PATHs Malaria Vaccine Initiative and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Earlier in his career, Kaslow worked in malaria vaccine development at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, where he studied the proteins involved in malaria parasite transmission to mosquitos.Even though the vaccine review office has worked through some of the knottiest problems of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaslow will still have a full agenda as he takes the reins. While the COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer have gained full approval, the boosters are still under emergency use authorization. If COVID-19 becomes a seasonal disease and people need regular boosters as with influenza, the vaccine office will need to work out the details of how to execute a full approval of a shot that changes as the virus evolves.Meanwhile, the office is also likely to be reviewing upcoming submissions for the first shots to protect against respiratory syncytial virus, as drugmakers GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna are advancing candidates.Gruber's retirement from the agency was accompanied by the departure of her deputy Phil Krause in November 2021. Shortly after the departures were announced, both were listed as co-authors of an article published in The Lancet that then argued against broad rollout of COVID-19 vaccine boosters, at a time when the Biden administration was preparing to begin a booster campaign.An FDA spokesperson didnt respond to emailed questions about whether Krause has been replaced. '