Symposium Presented by the Drug Information Association (DIA), the Food and Drug Law Institute (FDLI), and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, in collaboration with the Harvard School of Public Health Department of Biostatistics and Harvard Catalyst | The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center.

Biostatistics is the application of statistics — the study of the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data — to a wide range of topics in life sciences.  Biostatistics informs the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decision-making processes for premarket review of investigational drugs and devices and post-market surveillance of medical products, including decisions to require safety labeling changes and withdraw approval.   Recent developments, such as Congress’s creation of a new federal infrastructure for the dissemination of comparative effectiveness information, point to the need for a fresh look at the way in which biostatistical principles inform federal health care policy, particularly at the FDA.  This one-day symposium will give attendees the foundational knowledge they need to understand how biostatistics applies in FDA regulation, and will also address closely related issues residing at the intersection of statistical analysis and life sciences litigation.