Richard C. Zink, PhD

Adjunct Professor
Department of Biostatistics
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Public Health Leadership and Practice
JMP Statistical Discovery LLC
100 SAS Campus Drive
Cary, NC 27513
USA

About

Richard C. Zink (he/him) is Principal Research Fellow at JMP Statistical Discovery LLC where he identifies, researches, and overcomes obstacles in the medical product and life science industries. He has spent 20+ years contributing statistical thinking and analytical prowess in and around medical product development to address unmet need, streamline the interpretation and communication of data, accelerate the review of patient safety, and improve data quality. Richard serves on the Committee on Applied Statisticians in support of the Membership Council of the American Statistical Association and is the 2025 Chair for the Leadership in Practice Committee of the Biopharmaceutical Section. Richard is Associate Editor for the DIA journal Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, a post he has held for more than 10 years. He has authored, edited, or contributed to 9 books on statistical topics in clinical trials and clinical research. He holds a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he serves as Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics. As Adjunct Assistant Professor for the Department of Public Health Leadership and Practice, Richard teaches the course Fundamentals of Applied Improvisation for Public Health Professionals; he offers similar courses and workshops for statisticians and data scientists in order to turn quantitative scientists into quantitative leaders.

Teaching Interests

• Fundamentals of Applied Improvisation for Public Health Professionals

Research Activities

• Clinical Trials
• Analysis of Safety Endpoints
• Data visualization
• Statistical Leadership

Service Activities

• Committee on Applied Statisticians, American Statistical Association
• Chair, Leadership-in-Practice (LiPCom) Committee, Biopharmaceutical Section, American Statistical Association
• Associate Editor, Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science

Key Publications

Aggregate IND safety reporting for smaller companies and programs. Ball G, Li M, Buchanan J, Hendrickson B, Zink RC, Snapinn S & Herson J. (2024). Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science.

Biostatistical considerations when using RWD and RWE in clinical studies for regulatory purposes: A landscape assessment. Levenson M, He W, Chen J, Fang Y, Faries D, Goldstein BA, Ho M, Lee K, Mishra-Kalyani P, Rockhold F, Wang H & Zink RC.  (2023). Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research.

Analysis considerations for real-world evidence and clinical trials related to safety. In Wang W, Buchanan J, Li J & Munsaka M, eds. Zink RC, Munsaka M, Emir B, Ma Y, Li J, Wang W & Bennett D.  (2022). Quantitative Drug Safety and Benefit Risk Evaluation: Practical and Cross-Disciplinary Approaches.

Understanding the influence of individual variables contributing to multivariate outliers in assessments of data quality. Zink R. C., Castro-Schilo L., and Ding J. (2018). Pharmaceutical Statistics, 17.

Sources of safety data and statistical strategies for design and analysis: Clinical trials. Zink R.C., Marchenko O., Sanchez-Kam M., Ma H., and Jiang Q. (2018). Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, 52.

Advanced randomization-based methods in clinical trials. Zink R.C., Koch G.G., Chung Y., and Wiener L.E. (2017). Analysis of Clinical Trials Using SAS: A Practical Guide, Second Edition.

Education

  • PhD, Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003
  • MS, Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999
  • BS, Mathematics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1996