Ten Years, Nearly 800 Professionals, and a World of Expertise: Celebrating a Decade of the CMD Program

Ten years ago, GMDP Academy and King’s College London set out with a clear purpose: to build a certification program that met pharmaceutical professionals where they were — already in the field, already contributing, and ready to go deeper.

What followed is a story told best in numbers, in names, and in the collective expertise of nearly 800 professionals across more than 50 countries who chose to invest in their development through the Certification in Medicines Development (CMD) program.

This year, we celebrate a decade of that commitment.

The Numbers Behind the Milestone

Since welcoming our first cohort in 2017, the CMD program has grown into one of the most internationally diverse professional certification programs in the pharmaceutical industry. To date, 798 professionals have completed the program — representing more than 50 countries across six continents and some of the most respected organizations in global medicines development.

Those organizations include Pfizer, Sanofi, Novartis, UCB, and Boehringer-Ingelheim, among many others — companies that have trusted the CMD program not once, but repeatedly, sending professionals through its six modules year after year. That kind of institutional confidence is not given lightly. It is earned.

The program’s geographic footprint tells its own story. From Argentina to Australia, from Kenya to Kazakhstan, from Vietnam to the United Kingdom, CMD alumni are working across every major pharmaceutical market in the world. The conversations happening in our modules reflect that diversity — different regulatory environments, different healthcare systems, different cultural contexts — all brought together around a shared commitment to excellence in medicines development.

What Ten Years Has Taught Us

When we look back across a decade of cohorts, a few things stand out.

The professionals who come to the CMD program are not here to start their careers — they are here to sharpen them. They arrive with experience, with questions, and with a desire to connect what they already know to a broader, more rigorous framework. The program is designed to meet that ambition, whether a participant engages with a single module or completes the full certification.

The pharmaceutical industry never stands still, and neither has the program. Over ten years, the curriculum has evolved alongside the field — incorporating new thinking on regulatory science, clinical development, pharmacovigilance, medical affairs, and more. The CMD program today reflects the industry of today, not the industry of a decade ago.

And the alumni community that has grown from this program is something we could not have fully anticipated in 2017. Nearly 800 professionals, connected by a shared educational experience, distributed across the globe and across every function of the pharmaceutical industry — that community grows more valuable with every passing cohort.

Looking Ahead: Welcome to the Class of 2026

As we mark this milestone, we are proud to welcome the newest cohort of CMD participants — the Class of 2026.

This cohort represents 59 professionals from 30 countries, spanning six continents — from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico in the Americas, to Kenya and South Africa on the African continent, to Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India across Asia, to Australia, and across Europe from the United Kingdom and Denmark to Poland, Romania, and Turkey. They bring expertise spanning medical affairs, scientific communications, medical strategy, oncology, vaccines, pharmacovigilance, translational medicine, and public health — a breadth that reflects the full scope of modern medicines development.

They join a program with a decade of refinement behind it and a network of nearly 800 alumni ahead of them — colleagues they have not yet met, working in markets they may one day collaborate with, across every function of medicines development.

To the Class of 2026: you are joining something that has been built carefully, over time, by the professionals who came before you. You arrive at a meaningful moment — not just the beginning of your CMD journey, but the start of the program’s second decade. We look forward to seeing what you bring to it.

And to everyone who has been part of the CMD program over the past ten years — as a participant, a faculty member, a partner, or a supporter — thank you. This milestone belongs to all of you.

Here’s to the next ten years.

The GMDP Academy Certification in Medicines Development program, in partnership with King’s College London, is a ten-month, six-module program designed for pharmaceutical professionals at every stage of their career. Learn more about the program and upcoming cohorts here.

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  • The material in these reviews is from various public open access sources, meant for educational and informational purposes only
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