PHARMACEUTICAL STATISTICS

Pharmaceut. Statist. 2002; 1: 133 (DOI:10.1002/pst.042)

SOFTWARE REVIEWS

From data mining to dose escalation, from samplesize estimation to sequential designs, the use ofcustomized statistical software routines in thepharmaceutical industry is rife. Indeed, in the lastten years, Statistical Programming has become aprofession in its own right. This section is devotedto reviews of software commonly (or, perhaps, notso commonly) used in the industry. Reviews willbe published alongside any responses receivedfrom the relevant software vendors. Such reviewsmay be specific to a particular piece of software, ormay compare the use of alternative packages forthe same task. Peter Lane’s paper in this issue fallsinto the latter category, where he compares two

commonly used packages for sample size estima-tion.

We would welcome software reviews for futureissues of the journal. Perhaps you feel stronglyabout a particular piece of software or statisticalpackage, or have experience of using severalpackages for the same task and can give an insightinto their respective strengths and weaknesses? Orperhaps you are a software vendor and would like toobtain a review of a new version of your software?Either way, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Kerry GordonQuintiles

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.