Speciality Chemicals Magazine MAY / JUN 2021 | Page 54

DCAT Week will be a virtual event this July . We spoke with the association president , Sean Diver , about the form it will take

DCAT Week :

Virtually the same

VIRTUAL

DCAT Week will be a virtual event this July . We spoke with the association president , Sean Diver , about the form it will take

As the Drug , Chemical & Associated Technologies Association ( DCAT ) website points out , “ DCAT Week is not a trade show . It is a multifaceted event where member companies have the opportunity to reserve meeting space through the DCAT organisation to conduct high-level , private , strategic meetings with customers and suppliers .” DCAT Week has always been first and last about networking . In effect , it evolved from the DCAT Annual Dinner – which is still the highlight of the event and is attended by over 2,000 people – to include meetings in hotel suites , then other networking events in member lounges and finally the associated educational content , all taking place over four days in the heart of Manhattan . Whilst a virtual conference is not an unduly hard concept to grasp , a virtual DCAT Week certainly is . Nonetheless , that is the situation that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about . The 2020 event was cancelled and 2021 ’ s was initially postponed to July in the hope that vaccine rollout would be nearing completion and business travel would be approaching normal levels . Eventually , however , the directors concluded that the many variables outside DCAT ’ s control could still “ put our community at risk , adversely influence the attendee experience and detract from the overall success of a large , in-person meeting in New York City ”. Instead , that part has been postponed again until March 2022 and a virtual version will take place on 12-16 July . This will be centred on the educational content , which will go ahead with exactly the same content as there would have been at an inperson event . “ We are pleased to have as our keynote speaker Dr Jennifer Doudna , who is a 2020 Nobel laureate in Chemistry , known for CRISPR gene editing ,” says Sean Diver of Lonza , who was elected DCAT president in October 2020 . “ We thought that maintaining that element of DCAT Week was critical to maintaining the spirit of what we do and the content we provide .” The Member Announcement Forum , the Pharma Industry Outlook programme and the executive insights on manufacturing , drug development and supply chain management will all

54 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981