Enhance your PharmaSUG experience by attending optional pre- and post-conference training seminars taught by seasoned experts. Half-day courses are only $125 and full-day courses are $250. You can sign up for classes when you register for the conference. Space is limited!

Be sure to review the seminar registration, attendance, and cancellation policy.

Saturday, May 12

Sunday, May 13

Wednesday, May 16

Thursday, May 17

Seminar Registration, Attendance, and Cancellation Policy

1. You must register for the conference in order to attend a seminar.
2. You must register for a seminar via the PharmaSUG 2012 conference registration form either by postal mail, fax, or online (preferred).
3. You may cancel a seminar on or before April 30, 2012, and receive a full refund minus a $25 administration fee per cancelled seminar.
4. You may add another seminar on or before April 30, 2012 without being assessed a $25 administration fee. To sign up for an additional seminar after you have already registered for the conference, please contact the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
5. On or before April 30, 2012, you may swap one seminar for another; however, this is considered a change in conference registration and will incur a $25 administration fee.
6. After April 30, 2012, you MAY NOT SWAP seminars; however, a new seminar may be added depending on space and availability.
7. There will be NO REFUNDS after April 30, 2012. However, if you are unable to attend, the seminar material will be provided to you (either by postal mail or email) without additional charge.
8. Should a seminar be cancelled at any time for any reason, the sole liability of PharmaSUG and the instructor is a refund of the seminar fee, and they are NOT liable for any special or consequential damages arising from the cancellation of the seminar.
9. On-site registration will be permitted based on space and availability, and payable by major credit card (MC, VISA, Discover, AMEX). However, seminar materials may not be available on-site but will be provided later to paid attendees.
10. You may sign up for seminars occurring at the same time, i.e., you can attend one class and ask for material for another class, bearing in mind that tuition must be paid for both seminars.

For questions about the above seminar policy and availability, please contact MaryAnne DePesquo and Syamala Schomperlen, Seminar Coordinators, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Course Descriptions

Seminar #1: Getting Started with SAS Macro Language Basics
Art Carpenter
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 8:00am – 12:00pm

Intended Audience: Beginner to Early Intermediate

This half-day seminar is designed for the SAS programmer who is new to the Macro Language. We will start at the basics and cover the fundamentals necessary to start applying SAS macros in your programs. By the end of the day you will understand how the Macro Language works, what the Macro Symbol Table is and how to values stored in it, how the SAS System uses Macro Variables, key Macro Language concepts, important SAS Macro Language statements, and how to invoke Macros in your programs. The examples shown in the course materials demonstrate the power and flexibility of this part of the SAS System and will enable you to apply its functionalities to your own programs right away.

Seminar #2: Creating Complex Reports
Cynthia Zender
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 8:00am – 12:00pm

Intended Audience: Intermediate

This seminar is based on the SAS Global Forum paper of the same name. This seminar is for intermediate SAS programmers. In the seminar, we will investigate how eight (8) complex reports were produced with SAS. All the code that produced the reports will be covered, in detail. All report output is produced using ODS (rather than LISTING) output. The reports to be covered include three versions of a standard demographic report, producing a color-banded report with PROC TABULATE, producing a report which uses special fonts (Bissantz SparkFonts) to produce a sparkline report, several graph examples and several unique report ordering examples. Procedures/Topics to be covered include: REPORT, TABULATE, FORMAT, MEANS, FREQ, Macro processing and DATA _NULL_ programming (as used to produce the reports). Refer to the SAS Global Forum paper to see the actual reports which will be discussed in detail.

Seminar #3: PROC SQL Programming: The Basics and Beyond
Kirk Paul Lafler
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: All Levels

PROC SQL Programming: The Basics and Beyond provides SAS users with core concepts and features about accessing, programming, and manipulating data stored in SAS tables (datasets). Attendees learn how to use PROC SQL to access, retrieve, subset, order, and group data stored in relational SAS tables; construct “virtual” tables known as views; construct logic scenarios with case expressions; understand the difference between DATA step merges and joins; create inner joins, outer joins, and set operators to combine tables of data; define, access and manipulate data; construct new SAS content and tables from existing tables; produce “quality” looking output with PROC SQL options and Output Delivery System (ODS); use summary (statistical) functions to aggregate data; interface PROC SQL with the macro facility; understand index rules and strategies; and apply query performance techniques.

Seminar #4: Clinical Graphs using SAS 9.2
Sanjay Matange
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: All Levels

Do you wish you could create modern clinical graphs using SAS? Have you heard that it is difficult to create such graphs using SAS? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, this course is for you. This half-day course will cover, in detail, how to create the graphs used in Health and Life Sciences industry, including graphs commonly used for analysis of safety data for clinical trials. In this course, we will build many such graphs from scratch using the most appropriate graph tools from the ODS Graphics tool set, including SG Procedures and GTL.

Course outline:

• Brief review of ODS Graphics, SG Procedures and GTL.
• Create the following graphs using ODS graphics:
  • Distribution of ASAT by Time and Treatment
  • Distribution of LFT Values by Treatment
  • Matrix Display of Maximum LFT Values
  • LFT Patient Profile
  • Hazard Function of Adverse Event
  • Adverse Events Timeline
  • Medications over time
  • Lab results panels over time
  • Symptoms over Time by Severity
  • Top Twenty Adverse Events by Treatment
  • Liver Function Test Panel
  • LFT by Trial Day for At Risk Patients
  • Survival distribution by Time and Illness
  • Growth v/s BMI Chart
  • And more

Seminar #5: Innovative Tips and Techniques: Doing More in the DATA Step
Art Carpenter
Sunday, May 13, 2012, 8:00am – 12:00pm

Intended Audience: Beyond Beginner

In order for you to write innovative DATA step solutions to complex coding problems, it is necessary for you to have more than a basic understanding of the individual statements. You need to understand how the various statements interact with each other and how their options can be leveraged to provide the kind of DATA step code that will provide innovative solutions to the toughest of problems. Based on Art’s latest book, which is due to be published in the spring of 2012, this class is a must for the DATA step programmer that wants to take his or her programs to the ‘next’ level.

Topics include:

• Data set options with impact
• New functions and old functions with new options
• Evaluating expressions
• Working with Data Component Objects - Hash Tables
• Transposing the data using arrays
• Using the DO loop
• Using double SET statements effectively
• Look-ahead and Look-back techniques
• Using Multi-label formats to create running averages
• Table look-ups in the DATA step
• and much more...

Seminar #6: XML for SAS Programmers
Frederick Pratter
Sunday, May 13, 2012, 8:00am – 12:00pm

Intended Audience: All Levels

XML (the eXtended Markup Language) is an open standard for the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data. The standard was developed by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) in order to provide a simple and efficient way to manage self-documenting data files. SAS® 9.2 includes a number of useful tools for creating and parsing XML data. These include The XML libname engine - used to import and export documents in XML format into or from a SAS dataset, optionally using an XMLMap. The XML Mapper application - a graphical interface to analyze the structure of an XML document or an XML schema and generates basic XML syntax for the XMLMap. The Output Delivery System - used to create XML from SAS output; ODS MARKUP creates but does not read XML documents. This seminar will introduce these concepts and present some brief examples of each. In addition, bonus topics include an overview of PROC CDISC and the new SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit 1.4.

Seminar #7: Analysis of a Binary Outcome Variable Using Logistic Regression
Arthur Li
Sunday, May 13, 2012, 8:00am – 12:00pm

Intended Audience: Basic knowledge of SAS programming (such as creating SAS data sets and variables by using the DATA step) and basic knowledge of simple linear regression.

In the health care industry, we often encounter data with dichotomous outcomes, such as having (or not having) a certain disease. This type of data can be analyzed by building a logistic regression model, which allows you to estimate the probability of success in a certain outcome. In this seminar, students will learn how to build a logistic regression model by using the LOGISTIC procedure. Some statements in PROC LOGISTIC that are new to SAS 9.2 and ODS statistical graphics relating to logistic regression will also be introduced in this course.

Seminar #8: Using Dictionary Tables in Pharmaceutical Applications
Frank DiIorio
Sunday, May 13, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: Beginner/Intermediate statistical/data management programmers

SDTM, ADaM and a host of other emerging standards have added complexity to the already challenging life of pharmaceutical industry programmers. These standards are typically represented as metadata that describe the attributes of deliverables such as datasets and displays. SAS dictionary tables are another, complementary metadata source. These tables contain a wealth of information about a SAS session, describing contents of datasets and views, identifying macro variables, titles and footnotes, ODS destinations, and characteristics of external files. The tables are useful in and of themselves (think “utility macros”). And they become even more valuable to programmers who must ensure deliverables’ compliance with standards. This seminar takes attendees on a tour of the more commonly used dictionary tables. It:

• Presents an overview of how the tables are created and maintained
• Illustrates the relationships among the tables
• Demonstrates different ways to view the tables’ contents
• Identifies usage quirks and “features”
• Gives examples of how they can be used for both generalized and pharma-specific applications

Seminar #9: Propensity Score Methods and Uses in SAS
Scott Leslie
Sunday, May 13, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: Intermediate level SAS programmers, statisticians, or data analysts

Observational research provides the ability to assess effects of treatments in large populations. Although observational studies can answer many relevant questions in "real world" conditions, studies that lack randomization of subjects into treatment groups must address confounding and treatment selection bias to properly estimate the effect of treatment as non-randomized groups usually differ on observed and unobserved characteristics. That is, the observed treatment effect may be due to the treatment itself or due to the differential selection into treatment groups from non-randomization. Propensity score methods are often used to reduce confounding and treatment selection bias by mimicking randomization. Conventional regression adjustment, matching, and stratification using propensity scores are widely used techniques to adjust for treatment selection bias by balancing groups, usually a treatment group and non-treatment group, on observed characteristics. Included in this half-day training class is a description of these propensity score methods, an explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and applications of methods by showing examples. This class will also review published SAS papers on this topic.

Seminar #10: Sharpening Your SAS Skills: Preparing for Certification
Sunil Gupta
Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: Beginner to Intermediate

Looking to advance your career by taking the SAS Base Programming Exam? This course will better prepare you for the exam by reviewing the key concepts and techniques required for understanding and passing the exam. All major topics are covered including accessing data, creating data structures, managing data, generating reports, handling errors, SQL, and ODS. Students will improve their proficiency in SAS syntax through simple task-oriented examples. The class also includes a review of sample test questions to reinforce your knowledge and understanding of the SAS programming language.

Seminar #11: JMP Basics You Can Use
Charles Shipp
Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: All Levels

The hallmark of Macintosh/Windows/JMP is that they are intuitive and self-instructive. Still, some basics will facilitate getting started. We teach how to navigate and use the interface, use the platforms; see your data; and analyze with statistical graphics. We take a cruise through all the advanced platforms, and conclude with case studies to reinforce learning and usage. We will go “live” through the JMP steps for each and show reports. The advanced topics which we tour give insights in specialty areas. As with SAS Procs, once you know the standards, customs and methodologies, you can jump right in with any of them. Furthermore, the JMP Tutorials and contextual Help are very, very instructive. You will even be increasing your statistical knowledge and prowess as you learn to use JMP software.

Seminar #12: Advanced Reporting and Analysis Techniques: It's Not Just About The PROCs!
Art Carpenter
Thursday, May 17, 2012, 8:00am – 5:00pm

Intended Audience:

There are literally hundreds of techniques used on a daily basis by the users of SAS® software as they perform analyses and generate reports. Although often obscure, most of these techniques are relatively easy to learn and generally do not require specialized training before they can be implemented. Unfortunately a majority of these techniques are used by only a very small minority of the analysts and programmers. They are not used more frequently, because a majority of SAS users have simply not been exposed to them. Left to ourselves it is often very difficult to ‘discover’ the intricacies of these techniques and then to sift through them for the nuggets that have immediate value. This one day course presents a series of those nuggets. It covers a broad range of SAS topics that have proven to be useful to the intermediate and advanced SAS programmer who is involved with the analysis and reporting of data. The intended audience is expected to have a firm grounding in Base SAS. For most of the covered topics, the course will introduce useful techniques and options, but will not ‘teach the procedure’. No matter how experienced we are, no matter how well we know a procedure or a technique, there is still more that we do not yet know.

The course includes options and techniques associated with:

• New, powerful, and little used options in MEANS/SUMMARY
• Reporting procedures including TABLULATE and REPORT
• Understanding more about the REPORT compute block
• In the DATA step (functions, options, statements)
• Working with data
• Taking full advantage of formats
• Interfacing with the Macro Language
• Output Delivery System, ODS, extras
• Operating System Interfaces and how you can take advantage of them
• Advanced Table look-up techniques
• Importing and exporting data
• Much, much more

Seminar #13: Introduction to ADaM
Mario Widel, Paul Slagle, and Sandra Minjoe
Thursday, May 17, 2012, 8:00am – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: Intermediate

This full-day course shows you how to develop your CDISC ADaM datasets to enable your specific statistical analyses, such as t-tests, proportions, time to event, adverse events and ANOVA. Students will learn specifics of the published ADaM dataset structures and how to apply them to their own clinical study data. Additionally, we will examine situations that don’t fit the published structures like concomitant medications and multivariate analyses and describe options for handling them.

Seminar #14: Putting SAS’s Clinical Standards Toolkit (CST) to Work for You
Mike Molter
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Intended Audience: Intermediate

With the CST properly installed on your system, two questions immediately come to mind. The first is “How do I get started?” After installation I see no new programs in my Start menu or shortcuts on my desktop; no GUI interface with icons to perform tasks associated with advertised CST functionality. I do find several new directories and a variety of new files, including SAS datasets, format catalogs, and programs, many of which define macros. With nothing more than a Base SAS environment, how do I become familiar with the functionality of more than 100 files and use them for the purposes for which they are intended?

The second question is “How do I make CST work with my company’s or therapeutic area’s standard?” SAS provides us with CDISC-defined standards and metadata for SDTM safety domains, but how do I define these for custom efficacy domains? SAS provides us with a set of SDTM compliance checks, but how do I add custom checks, or change the way one of the existing checks is implemented? The CST generates Define.xml, but how can I have some control over this?

Version 1.4 of the CST was developed by SAS to validate the compliance of a SAS database to a set of standards (e.g. CDISC SDTM) and to generate Define.xml, but it doesn’t perform these functions without some initial setup. It also doesn’t know anything about your company’s interpretation or implementation of SDTM. This seminar will begin with an introduction to the CST by discussing some of the different types of files installed, and those necessary to run a CST process. Armed with our own standards or our own interpretation of SDTM, our own controlled terminology, and our own custom edit checks, we’ll examine the content of installed datasets, assess SAS’s interpretation of CDISC standards, and demonstrate the necessary setup steps required for customization. Finally, with all of the necessary files in place, we’ll demonstrate the use of driver programs that execute these processes.

PRE-REQUISITE: Base SAS, SAS Macro, CDISC SDTM and Define.xml knowledge

Instructor Bios

Art Carpenter

Art Carpenter's publications list includes four books and numerous papers and posters presented at SAS Global Forum, SUGI, and other user group conferences. Art has been using SAS since 1976 and has served in various leadership positions in local, regional, national, and international user groups. He is a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer and through California Occidental Consultants he teaches SAS courses and provides contract SAS programming support nationwide.

Frank DiIorio

Frank DiIorio is President of CodeCrafters, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in pharmaceutical applications and SAS training.A SAS programmer since 1975, Frank is the author of the popular "SAS Applications Programming: A Gentle Introduction" and "Quick Start to Data Analysis with SAS."   His 60+ papers have been presented at  many local, regional, and international SAS conferences.Frank is past President of the SouthEast SAS Users Group, and was co-chair of  its 1994 and 1996 conferences and in 2007 was a co-founder of the Research Triangle CDISC Users Group. In 2006, he was one of six recipients of the SAS Silver Circle Award.

Sunil Gupta

Sunil Gupta is a best selling SAS author and global corporate trainer. Sunil is Principal Consultant at Gupta Programming since 1994. Most recently, Sunil launched www.SASSavvy.com and released five new SAS e-Guides on Quick Results with PROC SQL, Quick Results with PROC REPORT, A to Z Analysis and Validation using PROC TABULATE, Compare and Conquer SAS Programming Techniques and Automating Tasks using SAS Macro Programming. He has been using SAS® software for over 18 years and is a SAS Base Certified Professional. He is also the author of Quick Results with the Output Delivery System, and Sharpening Your SAS Skills.

Kirk Lafler

Kirk Paul Lafler is consultant and founder of Software Intelligence Corporation and has been programming in SAS since 1979. He is a provider of IT consulting services and training to SAS users around the world. As an author of four books including PROC SQL: Beyond the Basics Using SAS (SAS Institute. 2004), he has written nearly five hundred papers and articles, been an Invited speaker at more than three hundred SAS user group conferences/meetings, and is the recipient of 18 “Best” contributed paper awards.

Scott Leslie

R. Scott Leslie is a Health Outcomes Researcher for MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc. with 12 years of SAS® experience in the pharmacy benefits and medical management field. His SAS skills include Base SAS, SAS/STAT, SQL, Enterprise Guide, and ODS. Scott holds a Masters of Public Health degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Loma Linda University. He is an author of a SAS book chapter and has presented at local, regional and international SAS user group conferences as well at various clinical and scientific conferences. He is an executive committee member of Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) and San Diego SAS Users’ Group (SANDS).

Arthur Li

Arthur holds an M.A. in Mathematics from the California State University, Fullerton, and an M.S. in Biostatistics from the University of Southern California. Currently, he is a Biostatistician in the Department of Information Science at the City of Hope National Cancer Center in Duarte, California. In addition, Arthur developed and taught a SAS programming course, “Programming in Modern Statistical Software,” in the Department of Preventive Medicine at U.S.C. for the past four years.  He has also given many presentations at various SAS conferences in the past few years.

Sanjay Matange

Sanjay Matange is a Senior Development Manager in the Data Visualization Division at SAS.  Sanjay is responsible for the development and support of the ODS Graphics system, including the Graph Template Language (GTL), Statistical Graphics (SG) procedures, ODS Graphics Designer, and other related graphics applications.  Sanjay’s team is also responsible for development of interactive visualization components used in many SAS Products and Solutions such as Enterprise Miner, Forecast Studio, Risk Analysis, Warranty Analysis and many more.  Sanjay has been involved in the development of graphics software at SAS for over 20 years.  Sanjay has graduate degrees in Computer Science from NC State University.

Sandra Minjoe

Sandra Minjoe is an ADaM consultant at Octagon Research Solutions Inc., where she helps others adopt and implement CDISC standards. Prior to joining Octagon, Sandra worked as a Manager of Statistical Programming and as a Principal Statistical Programmer. She is an active participant in industry groups including PharmaSUG, CDISC, and PhUSE, and is a regular presenter of papers, training classes, and tutorials.

Mike Molter

Mike Molter is a Life Sciences Consultant with d-Wise Technologies in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mike began working with SAS in 1999 in the healthcare industry before moving to statistical programming in clinical trials in 2003. In his current role, Mike helps clients develop and implement technical and process solutions around clinical data standards such as CDISC SDTM and ADaM using a variety of SAS tools. Mike is a member of CDISC’s XML Technologies team, and presents at various local, regional, and national SAS user group conferences.

Frederick Pratter

Frederick Pratter retired as tenured Professor of Computer Science & Multimedia Studies from Eastern Oregon University in June 2011. Since then he has been working as a consultant, primarily as senior developer and systems architect for Destiny Corp. in Rocky Hill, CT. The 3rd edition of his book Web Development with SAS by Example was published by SAS Press in August 2011. Prior to giving up the East Coast urban lifestyle, he was Senior Scientist and Information Technology Director for the Business Research Consulting Group at Abt Associates in Cambridge, MA. He has been a SAS user since 1975, and has also presented seminars, workshops and papers at numerous SGF, WUSS, NESUG, SESUG, PharmaSUG and PNWSUG conferences. He now resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he doesn't gamble or fool around.

Charles Shipp

Charles Edwin Shipp is an instructor, author, consultant and programmer, and has used SAS software since 1980, and JMP since its beginning in 1989.  He is credited in the original JMP manual for his roles in the early days. He has written more than one hundred papers and has been an invited speaker at more than eighty International, regional, local, and special-interest SAS and JMP conferences and meetings, and is the recipient of 10 “Best” contributed paper awards. Charlie is the co-author of three books including the ever-popular Books by Users (BBU) book, Quick Results with SAS/GRAPH Software. Currently, Charlie is involved as an eBook author, sasCommunity.org Advisory Board member, application developer, and JMP instructor. He consults in SAS, JMP and JMP Genomics. He can be reached via E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Paul Slagle

Paul Slagle has been a SAS programmer for over 25 years, about half of that in the pharmaceutical business and the other half in manufacturing. Paul has presented at PharmaSUG in the last few years as well as Michigan SAS Users Group. He has also been on the conference committees for SUGI, PharmaSUG, MWSUG, and MiSUG. Paul is the Associate Director of Clinical Programming for UBC, a division of Medco.

Mario Widel

Mario Widel has been doing programming since 1985 and statistical programming since 1992. He has worked as a system programmer before working as statistical programmer. He has been in companies like Abbott, Searle, Eli Lilly, Genentech and recently in Roche Molecular diagnostics. He is a member of the CDISC ADaM team.

Cynthia Zender

Cynthia Zender is a Technical Training Specialist for SAS in the United States. She is the co-author (with Lauren Haworth and Michele Burlew) of Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond Users.