For many SAS users, lexjansen.com was simply a destination. It was the place you went when you needed to find that paper you vaguely remembered from a conference years ago, track down an expert's presentation on a niche topic, or discover the best work that had ever been published on a particular SAS technique. It was fast, comprehensive, and effective.
What many people didn't realize was that Lex Jansen was a real person.
We learned the sad news this week that Lex passed away. And his site, which has helped thousands of SAS users over the decades, is now gone. These are two huge losses for the global community of SAS users.
His passion project: make information accessible
Lex built and maintained lexjansen.com, a personal, not-for-profit project that became one of the most valuable resources in the SAS ecosystem. The site indexes tens of thousands of papers from SAS Global Forum, PharmaSUG, PHUSE, regional user groups, and countless other conferences, providing a powerful search experience across decades of technical knowledge.
That's perhaps one of the highest compliments a technical contributor can receive. Lex built something so useful, so dependable, and so enduring that it became infrastructure. His work quietly enabled the success of thousands of others.
Before modern search engines became as capable as they are today, lexjansen.com set the standard for finding relevant technical content. Even now, many experienced SAS professionals will instinctively type their search terms into Lex's site before trying anything else. The site's carefully curated indexing and search capabilities often made it easier to find the right paper than searching the conference websites themselves.
For countless users, "Lex Jansen" became synonymous with the site itself. Many learned how to use lexjansen.com long before they ever learned there was a person behind it. Some never knew at all.
Stalwart contributor to clinical data standards and the pharma industry
Throughout his career, Lex had many "day jobs" aside from building his website for SAS users. He worked on methods and data formats for clinical data and pharmaceutical submission standards, including CDISC and Define-XML. After years of prior experience in the industry, Lex joined SAS and worked on offerings such as SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit and SAS Life Science Analytics Framework. He later retired from SAS, but went to work for CDISC where he continued his work toward improving the data standards process and helping others in the industry to learn. (See this remembrance from his CDISC colleagues.) All the while, he continued to add content and index rules to lexjansen.com, so SAS users could always find the latest and best published information.
A personal remembrance
Like many people, I knew lexjansen the site long before I met Lex Jansen the person. I got to know him just a little bit during his time at SAS and during the annual PharmaSUG conference, where we could meet up in person. Since my team at SAS curates the content from SAS conferences, I worked with Lex to get that content indexed for his site. Most recently he added the content for SAS Innovate 2026. He was a super nice and approachable colleague and friend, and always very responsive to every request.
On a personal level, we recently compared photos from our respective trips to Iceland. Lex traveled there in June 2026, whereas I had been there in March. We both found it to be a beautiful country with amazing history and culture, but our climate experiences were very different! My trip was during Winter; Lex was there in the Spring.
Living in a world without lexjansen.com
The loss of Lex's site is a setback for SAS users -- but we still have access to the decades of content that the site made easy to search and find.
The goal of lexjansen.com was to index all of this published SAS content to make it easily searchable. But most of the actual published papers are hosted elsewhere. For example, you can find links to all SUGI/SAS Global Forum/SAS Innovate sessions here.
PharmaSUG proceedings are at the PharmaSUG site: https://pharmasug.org/past-conference-proceedings/
Many of the other regional/large conferences are also self-hosting their papers. Over time, I know the community will come together to fill the gap left by Lex, inspired by Lex's work and his acts of service for us all.
28 Comments
Thank you, Lex. Rest in peace.
Oh my goodness. I was surprised to find Lex's SAS paper site down recently and worried that another pillar of the old SAS community might be gone. You will be missed Lex. Your care and attention to index and share the knowledge of multiple generations of SAS users was epic.
Very sad news. RIP Lex. You have inspired many people and you will definetely be missed.
Thank you, Lex. Rest in peace.
Thank you, Chris, for the tribute to Lex. His site was an invaluable resource, and one that I frequently relied on whenever I needed guidance or answers on SAS-related questions. He will be missed and remembered by SAS users.
RIP Lex and Thanks Chris for expressing the collective gratitude and admiration from this community in such a wonderful blog!
Tragic news. Thank you, Lex. You are missed. RIP.
RIP Lex. I used the papers on your site a number of times and will miss your site. Thanks for the help.
9With the shared love of Chuck Berry and all things music it is solemn and melancholy to learn of this news. RIP godspeed, Lex, old pal, may the heavens become as well organized as you've done so down here.
He will be missed and remembered by us all! Standing on the shoulders of this giant, we will continue to move forward.
Based on his sharing model, I also have created a temporary and simple website version for the community, which will be further optimized on the public cloud.
Hope it will be helpful to the community and programmers. See: https://www.clinyun.com/ppi/
My sincerest condolences to his family and friends. I worked with Lex when he was in Hosting. He was always willing to help and take that extra minute when we needed it. He will be missed.
Thank you for posting this wonderful tribute to Lex Jansen!
For decades, Lex devoted himself to collecting, organizing, and preserving SAS papers and technical knowledge so that others could learn, teach, and grow. Because of his selfless work, students, programmers, analysts, researchers, and educators everywhere were able to find answers, discover new ideas, and advance their careers. He asked for little in return, always putting the community ahead of himself.
Thank you, Lex, for your generosity, your vision, and your unwavering commitment to our community.
Rest in peace, Lex. Your work and your spirit will never be forgotten.
Thank you Chris for writing this Blog. Lex is well known by all long term SAS users and will be missed.
"These are two huge losses for the global community of SAS users." This is such an understatement I am not even sure anyone can quantify the loss of Lex the person and the information he gathered!
RIP Lex and thanks for all the help over the years.
Oh my! I referred to his sites all the time!! Just last week I was trying to access one of his papers and wasn’t able to. He explained things so clearly and thoroughly. I never met him, but always appreciated the insights and information he provided.
Condolences to his family. His work and contributions are greatly appreciated.
Lex was my inspiration for many years. Deeply saddened with the news.
To fill the gap temporarily, I have put all conference papers of phuse, pharmasug and Wuss links together at https://www.clinstandards.org/conference-papers
I hope it is helpful to the community.
In my career, I have benefited greatly from SAS through Lex Janson. He will be missed and remembered by us all!
May Lex Janson rest in peace!
我在我的职业生涯中使用SAS因Lex Janson而受益颇多。他将被我们怀念和铭记!
愿Lex Janson一路走好！
I never got to meet Lex, but it felt like he was a friend. I wish I'd said thanks to him while I had the chance.
When I heard about lexjansen.com, I thought it was group of people managing a single website that has tremendously help sas programmers like me for decades.
Part II, somebody introduced me Lex for the first time in sas and for a minute I thought I was meeting Dr. Goodnight. Then somebody told me that he is Lex of lexjansen.com, I was trying to see rest of the folks behind Lex. Somebody again corrected me that he single handedly manages the entire website, on his own, for free!
Part III, eventually Lex and I worked on several projects and papers in Pharmasug and became good friends. After Lex retired from sas we usually meet in conferences. He will be sorely miss!!! Big loss personally and professionally!!!
Condolences to Lex's family and friends.
I never met Lex but the many wonderful stories about his character and skills say a lot about him.
Thanks for letting us know Chris and this wonderful tribute to him.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful tribute to what Lex Jansen shared with the SAS user community. For years I have referenced his site and shared it with students and colleagues, since the compilation of his work represented the voice of SAS users and their knowledge and experience.
He and his contributions will be missed.
He and his work will be missed.
A remarkable facilitator of access
to the shared ideas, knowledge, and experience of SAS users from everywhere.
Thank you, Lex, for what you did for all of my peers and for me.
Lex was a tremendous resource to the entire SAS community as well as one of the nicest, smartest and humble people that you could ever meet. Lex will truly be missed.
Very sad Lex has left us. This post captures the huge impact he had on the SAS community as well as his warmth & helpfulness as a colleague/friend. Thank you for this wonderful tribute. Gone too soon.
I am so deeply sorry to hear of his passing. This is a nice blog post.
He was truly a great guy. Some of my fondest memories are of having Lex at our PharmaSUG booth, then seeing people realize that (a) lexjansen was actually a person, (b) he's in the booth, and (c) he's a kind, funny, approachable guy. It was like meeting a movie star.
Chris, what a wonderful tribute to someone who was not only incredibly smart and deeply dedicated to the clinical development industry, but also genuinely humble. He will be greatly missed.
Lex was a great man, he will be missed by many SASers...
Tremendous loss to our small community...