As I mentioned a few days ago, I was at the ASCO Meeting over the weekend, arriving home Tuesday evening. ASCO has to be, as far as I can tell, the largest cancer meeting in the world. How big? 30,000 or so attendees big. Hundreds of sessions and talks big. Filling most of McCormick Center in Chicago big. Filling most hotel rooms in the city of Chicago big. Or, as these photos show, this big:
And, to reflect the hugeness of the meeting, the exhibit hall is enormous:
As is the hugeness of many of the drug company displays...
Although I couldn't really take pictures of it (too dark in general), the main plenary session lecture halls were on a similar monumental scale--the size of airplane hangars. Given the size of the meeting, it's really hard to wrap my mind around the program, or even to see all the talks that might be of interest to me.
Next up (although maybe not until Monday, given that tomorrow is Friday, which is reserved for one thing and one thing only on this blog): The swag! Trust me, it was almost as impressive as the plenary session halls and exhibit hall.
More like this
looks almost as big as the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.
EneMan wasn't there, I'm disappointed you didn't get to meet him in person :-)
Looks a lot like Heart Rhythm. You even have the same vendors!
The plethora of advertisements for medicines by pharma companies is almost scary. But then again, it could be worse, they could be advertising homeopathy.
Went to the ASM meeting there several years ago. We figured that you could easily play baseball with a 350ft center field in one of the halls.
I believe Iain Banks said it best, with the rather dark: "cancer, it's a growth industry". :-)
Apologies, but I have to take this obvious potshot.
ASCO: Putting the "big" in "Big Pharma". ;)