The purpose of this book is to provide a general guide to statistical methods used in the pharmaceutical industry, and to illustrate how to use S-PLUS to implement these methods. Specifically, the goal is to: _Illustrate statistical applications in the pharmaceutical industry; _Illustrate how the statistical applications can be carried out using S-PLUS; _Illustrate why S-PLUS is a useful software package for carrying out these applications; _Discuss the results and implications of a particular application; The target audience for this book is very broad, including: _Graduate students in biostatistics; _Statisticians who are involved in the industry as research scientists, regulators, academics, and/or consultants who want to know more about how to use S-PLUS and learn about other sub-fields within the indsutry that they may not be familiar with; _Statisticians in other fields who want to know more about statistical applications in the pharmaceutical industry.
From the reviews: STATISTICAL METHODS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW JOURNAL "...this book is extremely good and highly recommended to statisticians involved in the drug development process." "The book has a dual purpose. First, it contains examples of statistics in practice and includes interesting real-life examples ... . The second purpose of the book is to promote the use of S-Plus, by showing what can be done with this software, and illustrating its use ... . this is a very valuable book of case studies. Managers of Biometrics groups should ensure their staff have access to a copy and statistics consultants will need a copy of their own." (Tim Auton, Journal of Applied Statistics, Vol. 30 (1), 2003) "Most of the chapters are written from a procedural perspective, describing the task to be done, showing the S-PLUS code required to conduct the task, and then displaying the S-PLUS results. ... For a reader already sold on S-PLUS and looking for ways to apply it in his or her work, this book will be appealing. ... The book will help pharmaceutical statisticians implement S-PLUS in their work if they are new to S-PLUS." (Brian J. Eastwood, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Issue March, 2003) "Each one of the chapters begins with a short introduction to the subject, followed by background information on each source of data. ... and finishes with related references and an appendix with S-PLUS code. The latter is of major benefit to readers. It is very clearly set out with macros that cover a wide range of graphics and aspects of statistical analysis. ... this book is extremely good and highly recommended to statisticians involved in the drug development process." (Vasilis Nikolaou, Statistical Methods in Medical Research, Vol. 11 (2), 2002)