Cognitio

LifeSciences Australia
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Welcome to Cognitio, the weekly podcast by LifeSciences Australia, your go-to source for insights into the evolving world of medtech, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences. Hosted by Dr Tim Boyle, this podcast delivers bite-sized updates, expert discussions, and professional development insights to keep you informed and ahead of the curve. Each episode features hot topics, regulatory updates, sector trends, and practical career guidance, with guest appearances from industry leaders, ARCS members, and emerging innovators from BioBeacon. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting

  1. 6d ago

    Making Safety Part of Drug Design

    Why does fewer than one in ten drugs that enter clinical trials ever reach patients — and what can be done about it before a compound ever gets there? In this episode of Cognitio, Richard Knight, toxicologist and co-founder of Apconix, a nonclinical consultancy and lab working with biotech and pharma companies worldwide. Richard spent twenty years in global safety assessment at AstraZeneca, including several years as oncology safety lead, before starting Apconix a decade ago. Richard makes the case that toxicology shouldn't be treated as a late-stage hurdle, but as a design consideration from day one of drug discovery. Drawing on real AstraZeneca case studies — including the molecule that became the lung cancer drug Tagrisso — he shows how understanding a drug's target, its chemistry and the patient it's intended for can shape a better, faster, cheaper path through development. He closes with a grounded take on where non-animal testing methods and AI genuinely fit in the future of toxicology, and where the hype gets ahead of the reality. In this episode: Why toxicology should be a value-adding part of candidate selection, not a gate at the end of discoveryTwo companies, the same safety data, two very different (and defensible) callsHow early safety thinking helped one molecule beat its rivals to market, and outlast themA practical framework for assessing risk: the target, the chemistry, the patientWhere NAMs (non-animal methods) and AI genuinely help — and where they don't

  2. Sep 21

    Navigating Complexity: Multi-Site Governance and AI in Research Oversight

    Ethics approval is only the first hurdle for a clinical trial. Every site then needs its own research governance review, and that can cost patients precious time. In this Clinical Trials Day webinar, Angela Scheppokat, Manager Governance at the Royal Melbourne Hospital Office for Research, explains how Melbourne Health, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Women's Hospital built a mutual governance pathway so one review can serve all three sites. Angela takes us from the deed and the pilot through to the first study, a CAR T trial approved in four days, which helped secure Australia's first site activation. She then turns to artificial intelligence, outlining how her hospital defines its risk appetite, draws on national and Victorian guidance, and works with its Digital Health Committee to oversee AI in research. A practical listen for research governance offices, trial sponsors and anyone building a flexible, risk-responsive process across sites.

  3. Sep 7

    Between Leadership and Dependence: Australia's HTA System Under Pressure

    Australia occupies an unusual position in global pharmaceuticals. It is regarded as a leader in cost effectiveness assessment, and at the same time it depends on innovation funded largely elsewhere. What does that dual role mean for patient access and for the medicines that reach this market? In this episode of Cognitio, Tim Boyle presents a LifeSciences Australia Market Access Special Interest Group webinar featuring Ella O'Nuallain, a health economics and policy researcher now working at NSW Health, who interviewed ten senior leaders across government and the pharmaceutical sector for her London School of Economics dissertation. Her findings show clear agreement on some reforms, and a striking divergence on one question: whether Australia is still a tier one launch market. The discussion covers funding buckets, PBAC engagement, risk sharing agreements and where reform goes next.

  4. Aug 24

    What the Coroners Know

    Every year in England and Wales, coroners write around 450 reports naming actions that could prevent future deaths. Roughly one in five involves a medicine. They are public, they are searchable, and according to our guest, essentially no pharmaceutical company is using them for pharmacovigilance. Dr Georgia Richards is an epidemiologist at King's College London and the founder of the Preventable Deaths Tracker, the first platform to digitise coroners' reports and turn them into live, searchable data. She is Australian, trained at Oxford, and spent a period as a safety epidemiologist at AstraZeneca. In this episode she explains how the coronial system works, what the tracker has found about opioids, fentanyl patches and anaphylaxis, and why she considers this an underutilised safety data source. Content note for show notes: this episode discusses death investigations, including deaths by suicide and overdose, in a research and public health context.

    What the Coroners Know

  5. Aug 17

    Draw It Before You Say It

    Our sector speaks in technical language, and that language is precise, accurate and often impenetrable to the people it is meant to serve. In this episode of Cognitio, Tim Boyle hands the microphone to Jessamy Gee, founder and director of Think in Colour and Australia's first IFVP certified master visual practitioner. Jessamy works as a graphic recorder, translating complex discussion into a visual record while it is happening, across healthcare, security, agriculture and public consultation. She makes the case for why visuals change comprehension, memory and emotional connection, runs a short drawing exercise you can do while you listen, and explains how she captures emotionally charged lived experience without flattening it into a data point. Presented close to complete, as she delivered it.

    Draw It Before You Say It

  6. Aug 10

    How Do We Know It Isn't Just Luck? Biostatistics in Early Phase Trials

    Every early phase trial ends with a number, and with a judgement about whether that number means anything. In this episode of Cognitio, Professor Rory Wolfe of the Monash University Clinical Trial Centre and medical statistician Dr Alan Herschtal set out how biostatistics underpins that judgement, and why it belongs at the first planning meeting rather than the last. They cover why clinical development is staged the way it is, what a p value actually tells you and what it does not, why confidence intervals carry more information than significance alone, and why getting sample size wrong is an ethical failure and not just a budget problem. The episode closes on phase one specifics: dose escalation, the three plus three design, and the questions worth asking whatever your role.

  7. Aug 3

    Invisible, Essential and Overloaded: Rethinking Medical Operations

    Medical operations teams are often essential to the work of medical affairs, yet much of their contribution remains unseen. At the same time, growing workloads, limited resources and constant interruptions can leave teams operating in a cycle of reactive support. In this episode of Cognitio, webinar convener Lee-Mai Pang speaks with Sanofi medical operations leader Menai Johnson about breaking that cycle. Drawing on a practical organisational example, they explore how accountability can gradually shift towards medical operations, why this creates dependency and cognitive overload, and how capability building, clearer governance and risk-based implementation can return responsibility to the appropriate teams. The discussion also considers practical ways to protect capacity, say yes differently and reposition medical operations as a strategic partner focused on outcomes and impact

  8. Jul 27

    Adoption of AI in Pharmacovigilance

    Artificial intelligence is moving from experimentation into practical use across pharmacovigilance, but adoption brings important questions about accuracy, privacy, validation and accountability. In this episode of Cognitio, Ata Arkham, Senior Patient Safety Specialist at AstraZeneca, joins webinar moderator Matt Iglesias to explore how AI is being used across global and local pharmacovigilance operations. The discussion covers: • AI applications in case processing, signal detection, literature monitoring and document development• Practical options for smaller pharmacovigilance teams• Emerging technologies, including agentic and explainable AI• Data privacy, validation and regulatory readiness• A staged roadmap for responsible AI adoption• Why meaningful human oversight must remain central The episode provides a practical perspective on how pharmacovigilance professionals can use AI to improve efficiency while maintaining quality, compliance and patient safety. Cognitio is the podcast of LifeSciences Australia, sharing ideas, experience and perspectives from across Australia’s life sciences community.

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About

Welcome to Cognitio, the weekly podcast by LifeSciences Australia, your go-to source for insights into the evolving world of medtech, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences. Hosted by Dr Tim Boyle, this podcast delivers bite-sized updates, expert discussions, and professional development insights to keep you informed and ahead of the curve. Each episode features hot topics, regulatory updates, sector trends, and practical career guidance, with guest appearances from industry leaders, ARCS members, and emerging innovators from BioBeacon. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting

Information

  • Creator
    LifeSciences Australia
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    66
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © LifeSciences Australia
  • Show Website
    Cognitio

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