Mathematics in Careers
Career: Pharmaceutical Statistician by Peggy Wong
What does a statistician do?
‘Statistics is a science, not a branch of mathematics but uses mathematical models as essential tools’ – John Tukey
A statistician provides a framework for taking data, condensing and communicating that information to others. The use of statistics can be used in many different fields; statistics is used in finance, sports, government, health and market research.
I work in the health sector and participate in creating drugs that will help patients. Statisticians in drug development play a part in many different parts of the drug development. Some of us help identify the key chemical or biological agent to develop into the drug. We also help diagnose problems on the manufacturing line by using statistics to determine how long a drug can sit on a shelf or by making sure the drug works the same regardless of where you might buy the drug. Statisticians also use math models to help figure out if the drug is working in the experiment. For example, we may calculate the percentage of patients who get better when taking the drug compared to patients who are not taking the drug. Refer to the example figure below where many patients were summarized in a pie chart. Other statisticians help the sales force determine where the drug may sell better based on the competition. New Jersey is home to 14 of the world's 20 largest pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co., Novo Nordisk and Bayer Healthcare
(source: http://www.nj.gov/njbusiness/industry/pharmaceutical/).
For more information on pharmaceutical statistician, check out the following website:
For more information on how statistics is applied broadly, check out the following website.
http://www.amstat.org/ASA/What-is-Statistics.aspx?hkey=6f7536a3-2229-49e4-b4f1-3fade70b5e55
Prevalence and Impact of Baseline NS5A Resistance-Associated Variants (RAVs) on the Efficacy of Elbasvir/Grazoprevir (EBR/GZR) Against GT1a Infection - 16 Weeks vs 12 weeks. Presented at AASLD 2016 Nov 13-17 San Francisco Jacobson, et al.
