Louise’s first experience at ISPOR

Hi everyone, Louise here.  I have been working at Fingerpost Consulting for nearly 6 months!  Times flies when you are having fun!  Last month I attended my first ISPOR and I wanted to share my experience with you. 

Having worked in Pharma meetings and events for over 10 years I am no stranger to a congress (I worked out I must have travelled to over 100 in my time) but this was the first one I have attended as a participant for a very long time.  During my time at Roche in Switzerland, where I was initially an Event Manager and then the head of department, I had travelled to some far flung and exotic locations for meetings. When I heard ISPOR was in Glasgow this year I was excited; believe it or not I had never been there before! 

Cath and I boarded the train in Manchester and all of a sudden I felt myself switch into ‘business trip’ mode.  I hadn’t travelled for work for over a year as after leaving Roche and relocating back to the UK 18 months ago I took a bit of a career break to settle my family back home.  But all the old familiar feelings came back to me now, had I packed my comfy shoes for all the walking around the exhibit?  Would the congress centre food be as terrible as ever?
​And most importantly, was our location close to a decent bar and restaurant?

Having planned our attendance for almost as long as I had worked at Fingerpost I was excited to get to ISPOR and meet our clients as well as meet potential new ones.  Cath and I had worked hard to update our credentials presentation and our new marketing assets looked great.  We had a pretty full agenda already planned but hoped to expand our reach when we got to ISPOR. 

The first morning of the congress bought with it the usual queue to pick up our registrations and a nosey around the exhibit to see who had the most exciting giveaways.  It wasn’t long before we were striking up conversations with potential new clients and explaining our business model for providing freelance support to Market Access consultancies, as well as explaining the added services I could provide: Event Strategy and large Pharma corporate insights.  The interest was great and after two and a half days we came away from ISPOR with a huge bundle of business cards, a long list of follow up opportunities and even a new project from an existing client.  It was great to put faces to names/voices and have the opportunity to learn more about our clients’ needs and their plans for the future, as well as explain our vision for Fingerpost consulting.  I even managed to squeeze in a few plenary sessions to further build my knowledge of the Market Access field.

Obviously being in Glasgow we needed to sample some of the local delicacies.  Iron bru and Tunnock’s tea cakes were a firm favourite followed by the classic haggis tatties and neaps!  We managed to steer clear of the whisky but did find a fab gin bar that boasted over 30 different varieties!  All in all I think we managed to strike a good balance between hard work and having fun!

So thank you ISPOR for not only introducing me to the fascinating world of Market access but also for bringing me to Glasgow, I will be back!

Louise Bates
07855 322 017 
lbates@fingerpostconsulting.com