|
MINUTES
Meeting of the General Assembly of the Council of IUPHAR
Beijing, China
July 05, 2006
1. Roll Call: The following members did not send delegates: International Society of Pharmacovigilance, Armenia, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Switzerland.
2. Welcome and Opening Remarks by the President: Delegates and guests were welcomed by IUPHAR President Paul M. Vanhoutte. Professor Vanhoutte took this opportunity to congratulate the Chinese Pharmacological Society for an outstanding World Congress of Pharmacology. In all respects, the meeting has been excellent, with a stimulating scientific program and attractive social events. He also welcomed new IUPHAR members (listed below) and encouraged new members to become active in IUPHAR activities.
Full member:
Cuban Society for Pharmacology
Associate Members:
European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT)
International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP)
Pacific Rim Association for Clinical Pharmacogenetics
Spanish Society of Clinical Pharmacology (SEFC)
Professor Vanhoutte commended our corporate members, GlaxoSmithKline, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, and Wyeth Research, for their consistent and highly valued support of NC-IUPHAR activities. Without this support, the achievements of NC-IUPHAR would be greatly diminished.
Professor Vanhoutte commended the IUPHAR officers and Executive Committee for their stewardship of IUPHAR over the past four years. There have been substantial achievements, and some of these will be reviewed during the meeting. Others are summarized in the reports of the officers included in the agenda. Professor Vanhoutte concluded by expressing his pleasure at having the opportunity to serve IUPHAR, and his conviction that IUPHAR will continue to play an important role in forwarding the discipline of Pharmacology internationally.
3. Minutes of the General Assembly, July 10, 2002, San Francisco: These minutes (Agenda attachment A) were approved unanimously.
4. Approval of the Agenda: The agenda for the current meeting was approved unanimously.
5. Appointment of the Tellers: Four tellers were approved by a majority vote.
Duanqing Pei (China)
Ole Skott (Denmark)
Richard Weinshilboum (USA)
Yu Huang (China)
6. Presentation by ICSU Representative: Prof. Congbin Fu, representing the International Council of Science (ICSU), gave a presentation concerning the goals of ICSU and development of a future strategic plan. The major goal of ICSU is to strengthen international science for the benefit of society. ICSU members include 105 national members and 29 international Scientific Unions. Finances are limited, but there is a unique worldwide access to intellectual resources. As part of the strategic plan, regional offices are being established. A regional office for Africa has been opened, and regional offices for Asia and the Pacific, Latin America/Caribbean and the Arab regions are under development.
7. Reports of the Officers: President Vanhoutte had nothing to add beyond his introductory remarks and his written report (Agenda, Attachment B). There were no questions.
Secretary-General Sue Duckles referred to her written report (Agenda, Attachment C). There were no questions.
Treasurer Salomon Langer summarized financial status of the Union for the years 2003-2005. There have been substantial variations in income from year to year, primarily representing donations and grants to support activities of NC-IUPHAR. Nevertheless, the overall financial reserve has remained stable. Summaries of the financial reports for each of these years were included in the agenda (Attachment D), and full details are available upon request.
There was a comment from the floor concerning the activities of NC-IUPHAR and the cost of maintaining these efforts. Treasurer Langer emphasized that most of the funds raised by IUPHAR in excess of national dues were earmarked for NC-IUPHAR by the donor/grantor. In the future it will be critical to continue to raise funds for NC-IUPHAR if this effort is to be sustained.
8. Reports of the Auditors: Reports of the internal auditors (Anders Rane and Pat Humphrey) for 2003 and 2004 were included in the agenda (attachment E), and the 2005 report was distributed at the meeting.
External Auditor: Pursuant to recommendations of the 2002 General Assembly, Professor Langer indicated that he had retained Ms. Laurence Barchietto of Switzerland, a qualified accountant, to audit the 2003 and 2004 financial statements. Her reports for these two years were circulated to the delegates. Professor Langer will work with Ms. Barchietto to complete an audit of the 2005 accounts.
9. Election of Officers: Prof. Théophile Godfraind, chair of the Nominating Committee, summarized the procedure that was followed, including consultation of all member societies. The report of the Nominating Committee was included in the agenda as Attachment F. Professor Godfraind presented the slate of candidates for the Executive Committee for 2006-2010:
| President: | Sue P. Duckles (USA) | |
| Secretary General: | Sam Enna (USA) |
| Treasurer: | Urs Rüegg (Switzerland) |
| First Vice-President: | Sol Langer (Israel) |
| Second Vice-President: | Masayoshi Mishina (Japan) |
| Councilors: | Gabrielle Hawksworth UK) |
| | Zhi-Bin Lin (China) |
| | Kim Brøsen (Denmark) |
| | Mohammed T. Khayyal (Egypt) |
| | Sergio Ferreira (Brazil) |
Pursuant to provisions of the statutes, Martin Paul, a delegate of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, moved from the floor that Kay Brune (Germany) be added to the slate for the position of Councilor. Following collection of ballots from all the delegates and tallying by the tellers, Professor Godfraind announced the results. The following were elected for 2006-2010:
| President: | Sue P. Duckles (USA) | |
| Secretary General: | Sam Enna (USA) |
| Treasurer: | Urs Rüegg (Switzerland) |
| First Vice-President: | Sol Langer (Israel) |
| Second Vice-President: | Masayoshi Mishina (Japan) |
| Councilors: | Gabrielle Hawksworth UK) |
| | Zhi-Bin Lin (China) |
| | Kim Brøsen (Denmark) |
| | Mohammed T. Khayyal (Egypt) |
| | Sergio Ferreira (Brazil) |
10. Ratification of Name Change: A change in the name of IUPHAR from the “International Union of Pharmacology” to the “International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology” was discussed and approved by the Executive Committee in 2003. This change was then put to an e-mail vote of General Assembly delegates in 2003 (Agenda, Attachment G). The proposal was passed by a two-thirds majority of the voting delegates, and the change was provisionally adopted by the Union. However, as the statutes make no provision for an e-mail vote, the proposal for changing the name of the union to the “International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology” was put to a vote of the seated General Assembly. This change in name of the Union was then approved by an overwhelming majority of the delegates.
11. Proposals for Changes in the Statutes: Proposals for changes in the IUPHAR Statutes were made by a sub-committee of the Executive Committee chaired by Prof. Gabrielle Hawksworth. These were then extensively discussed and approved by the Executive Committee. These changes in the statutes (see agenda Attachment H) were put to a vote of the General Assembly and approved by an overwhelming majority of the delegates.
12. Proposed Nominating Committee: In accord with provisions of the IUPHAR statutes the Executive Committee has proposed the following individuals for the 2006-2010 Nominating Committee:
| Chair: | Bertil Fredholm (Sweden) |
| Members: | Keitaro Hashimoto (Japan) |
| Sergio Erill (Spain) |
| Michel Eichelbaum, (Germany) |
| James Angus (Australia) |
There were no nominations from the floor, and the slate was approved unanimously by a vote of the delegates.
13. Election of Internal Auditors: The Executive Committee proposed two individuals to serve as internal auditors for 2006-2010: Kay Brune (Germany) and Douglas Oliver (South Africa). There were no nominations from the floor, and the proposal was accepted by a majority of the delegates.
14. Bids for 2014 Congress: Five member societies bid to host the 2014 congress. Detailed proposals from each bidder were distributed in the agenda (Attachments J-N). A representative of each bidder gave a five-minute powerpoint presentation.
| Brazil | Prof. Regina Pekelmann Markus |
| Israel | Prof. John Finberg |
| Japan | Prof. Masao Endoh |
| Korea | Dr. Young Soo Ahn |
| South Africa | Prof. Douglas Oliver |
After two rounds of voting using secret ballots counted by the tellers, South Africa was chosen to host the 17th World Congress of Pharmacology in 2014.
15. Reports from Committees: Written reports from the Membership Committee and the IUPHAR Nomenclature Committee (NC-IUPHAR) were included in the Agenda (Attachments O and P). In the absence of Michael Spedding, Chair of the NC-IUPHAR committee, Dr. Duckles made a brief presentation highlighting the accomplishments of the committee over the last four years. These include an updated version of the Voltage-Gated Ion Channels compendium published in Pharmacological Reviews in 2005, a Compendium on Nuclear Receptors distributed at the Beijing meeting and to be published in Pharmacological Reviews, a 7-transmembrane receptor list published in Pharmacological Reviews, and a G-Protein Coupled Receptors Database freely available on the internet. An additional 8 articles were published in Pharmacological Reviews since 2002. These efforts have been supported by grants from Incyte, UNESCO and ICSU and by contributions from Servier, Wyeth, Novartis and Glaxo Smith Kline. The continued support of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in publishing NC-IUPHAR reports with no additional costs to IUPHAR is greatly appreciated.
16. Reports from the Division and Sections: Written reports were included in the agenda (Attachments Q-T). Dr. Patrick de Souich gave a detailed report of the accomplishments of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology over the last 4 years. The division participated actively in organization of CPT 2004 in Brisbane and prepared the “IUPHAR Compendium of Basic Principles of Pharmacological Research in Humans” which was distributed to all participants. The Division participated in the organization of several international congresses: “Primer Congreso Internacional de Terapeutica 2005 y XVII Congreso de la Asssociacion Latinoamericana de Farmacologia, Caracas, October, 2005; 1st Japan-Korea Joint Symposium of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Beppu, Japan, December, 2005; and a satellite symposium to the 7th Congress of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Poznan, Poland, June, 2005. The sub-committee for Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology, chaired by Dr. Kalle Hoppu, is actively promoting international initiatives to improve use of medicines in children. Professor Folke Sjoqvist has an active collaboration with WHO with current activities in Sri Lanka and Egypt, involving a number of members of the Clinical Division. Professor du Souich closed with a call for those willing to participate in activities of the Clinical Division to contact him or other members of the Division directly.
17. Proposed new Section: The agenda included proposed statutes for a new section on Natural Products (attachment U). These were developed by a Working Group on Natural Products, chaired by Prof. Ricky Man (Hong Kong). The timeliness of this proposal was emphasized, and it was pointed out that the Beijing World Congress quite appropriately included substantial programming on this topic as well as a young investigators poster competition for Natural Products research. The proposed statutes were approved by a substantial majority.
18. Other Business: There was a comment from the floor commending NC-IUPHAR for outstanding achievements and expressing the importance of continued support for this effort. Others expressed agreement with this sentiment. Arnold Herman (Germany) suggested that the topic of Geriatrics be considered by the clinical Division. Prof. Emilio Sanz (SEFC) inquired whether approval of revised statutes would mean that SEFC was now a full member of IUPHAR. Prof. Duckles confirmed that, since SEFC had originally applied for Full membership, the Executive Committee had already decided that, should the statutes be changed to permit more than one member from a country, SEFC would automatically become a full member of IUPHAR. It was emphasized that other associate members could apply to become full members and would be encouraged to do so.
19. Progress in arrangements for upcoming Congresses: Stuart MacLeod detailed the progress in planning for CPT2008, which will take place in Quebec City, Canada on July 26-August 1, 2008. Prof. Kim Brøsen gave a presentation about the progress in planning for the 2010 congress, which will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark from July 17-23, 2010. The organizing committees for both Congresses warmly invite all Pharmacologists to attend these meetings.
20. Closing Remarks by the Outgoing President: Professor Vanhoutte reiterated his pleasure at serving IUPHAR and commended all of those who have dedicated their time and energy to making the Union successful. He thanked the Delegates for representing the member societies, and the continued support that all IUPHAR members have provided. He then declared the General Assembly adjourned.
|
