PharmaForest: A Collaborative Repository of SAS Packages for Pharmaceutical Industry

Project Scope

To promote the adoption of reusable SAS packages and best practices across the pharmaceutical industry, addressing inefficiencies, lack of standardisation and limited community collaboration. The focus is on creating an open, sustainable ecosystem that improves productivity, compliance and knowledge sharing.

 Objectives:

• Create educational materials and presentations: Tips for implementing PharmaForest packages and the SAS Packages Framework (SPF). Share at webinars, industry events (e.g. PHUSE Connect) and internal training sessions.

• Build and maintain an open-source repository: Curate high-quality SAS packages for common pharma use cases. Enable easy installation and version control through the SPF.

• Foster community engagement: Encourage contributions, peer reviews and discussions. Provide onboarding resources for new SAS programmers.

SAS programming in the pharmaceutical industry faces inefficiencies and fragmentation:

• Limited reusability: SAS code is often developed in silos, leading to redundant work and slow validation.

• Poor package management: Unlike Python or R, SAS lacks robust dependency and version control.

• Small, fragmented community: Few collaborative platforms exist, limiting knowledge sharing and onboarding.

These issues lead to silos and inefficiency as a whole and prevent continuous growth of ideas and technologies in the community.

PharmaForest will significantly improve efficiency, standardisation, and collaboration in pharmaceutical SAS programming on top of the SAS Packages Framework:

• Accelerated development: By reducing duplicative coding and providing reusable packages, project timelines for clinical trials and regulatory submissions will shorten.

• Improved compliance and quality: Standardised, community-reviewed packages enhance reliability and reduce risk during audits and regulatory reviews.

• Lower costs: Shared resources and streamlined processes decrease development and validation expenses.

• Community Growth: An open platform fosters knowledge exchange, accelerates onboarding for new programmers, and builds a sustainable ecosystem for innovation.

Overall impact: PharmaForest transforms SAS programming from a fragmented, manual process into a collaborative, standardised, and efficient model – benefiting both individual companies and the industry as a whole. 

Ryo Nakaya, Takeda

ryou.nakaya@takeda.com

Yutaka Morioka, EPS Corporation

morioka.yutaka038@eps.co.jp

Hiroki Yamanobe, Maruho

yamanobe_ffa@mii.maruho.co.jp

Alex Pearce, PHUSE Project Coordinator

alexandra@phuse.global

If you are interested in joining this project, please email workinggroups@phuse.global