Platforms: Historical Perspectives and the Future of RNAi

This session will feature industry players discussing RNAi technology -- where we have been, where we are going, and why.

Moderator:

• Craig Muir, Partner, Third Rock Ventures

Speakers:

• Jeremy Caldwell, Vice President, RNA Therapeutics, Screening and Protein Sciences, Merck & Co., Inc.
• Douglas Fambrough, CEO & co-founder, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals
• John Maraganore, CEO, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
• Tod Woolf, Chief Business Officer, X-BODY Biosciences

Personalized Medicine: The Now of Personalized Medicine

This panel will survey the success of personalized medicine in oncology and how the future of cancer management may proceed.

Moderator:

• Glenn Miller, VP & Head of Personalized Healthcare, AstraZeneca

Speakers:

• John Beeler, Director, Theranostics and Business Development, bioMerieux
• Erling Donnelly, Director, Worldwide Regulatory Strategy, Pfizer Inc.
• Michael Pellini, CEO, Foundation Medicine
• Michael W. Henry, Vice President, Business Development, Athena Diagnostics Inc.

Therapeutics Pathways: Approaches to Tumor Treatment

The age of molecular medicine has now shown us that many diseases of aging are pathway driven.   This panel will feature academic researchers, biotech and pharma companies working in this disease space and developing molecules utilizing different mechanisms of action.

Moderator:

• Raju Kucherlapati, Ph.D., Paul C. Cabot Professor of Genetics, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Speakers:

• David Schenkein, CEO, Agios Pharmaceuticals
• Steven Tregay, Founder, President and CEO, FORMA Therapeutics
• Tal Zaks, Vice President, Oncology Clinical Development, Sanofi

Platforms: Most Promising New Technologies

This session will feature industry players discussing the newest technologies that are showing the most promise – and winning the most deals.

Moderator:

• Kevin J. Bitterman, Principal, Polaris Venture Partners

Speakers:

• Jessica Baker Flechtner, Vice President of Research, Genocea Biosciences, Inc.
• Alexandra Glucksmann, Senior Vice President, Research and Business Operations, Cerulean Pharma
• Juswinder Singh, CSO, Avila Therapeutics, Inc.
• Charles Wilson, Vice President and Global Head of Strategic Alliances, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR)

Personalized Medicine: It's Not Cancer Anymore

Infectious disease, cardiovascular, CNS and autoimmune disease management all will benefit from a PM approach.  Our panel features scientific-business leaders in other disease states who will compare and contrast how they view the opportunities in PM.

Moderator:

• Sheela Hegde, Vice President, Health Advances

Speakers:

• Diana W. Bianchi, M.D., Executive Director of the Mother Infant Research Institute, Floating Hospital for Children
• Daniel Levy, M.D., Director, Framingham Heart Study, & Director, Center for Population Studies, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
• Alfred W. Sandrock, MD, PhD, Senior Vice President, Medical Research Neurology, Biogen Idec
• Jeff Voss, Senior Principal Research Scientist, Abbott Bioresearch Center and member of FNIH steering committee for Inflammation and Immunology

Therapeutic Pathways : Alzheimer’s Disease

The age of molecular medicine has now shown us that many diseases of aging are pathway driven.   This panel will feature academic researchers, biotech and pharma companies working in this disease space and developing molecules utilizing different mechanisms of action.

Moderator:

• Dennis J. Selkoe, Co-Director, Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Speakers:

• Kees Been, CEO, EnVivo
• Barbara Tate, Vice President of Biology, Satori Pharmaceuticals
• Ajay Verma, Vice President, Translational Neurology, Biogen Idec
  
  

Platforms: Early Commercial Insights

Platform technology companies serve as product opportunities and drug development engines for big pharma.  Innovative platform companies provide a potential stream of products for larger companies in search of innovation. Yet small innovative companies developing new products often don’t anticipate commercialization strategies for their products and platorms.  This panel will address how to place a value on such game changing technologies.

Moderator:

• John Harrington, Chief Commercial Officer, Sanofi Oncology

Speakers:

• Vincent Miles, Venture Partner, Abingworth
• Michael A. Metzger, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Mersana Therapeutics
• Susan Nemetz, President, The NemetzGroup

Paying for Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine is essential to maximizing the value of healthcare today, with the goal of shuttling patients to the right care at the right time to increase favorable clinical outcomes and decrease costs overall. Payer groups, including commercial insurers, integrated delivery networks (IDNs) and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are crucial stakeholders in the promotion of personalized medicine. This session will explore the role of these groups to understand and promote personalized medicine, the partnerships they are forming with therapeutics and diagnostics companies to develop products to support their real life patient populations, and their plans for the future.

Moderator:

• Donna Hochberg, Manager, Health Advances

Speakers:

• Bryan Dechairo, Senior Director, Development Head, Medco
• Jerry Conway, Vice President of Payor Contracting & Reimbursement, Metamark Genetics, Inc.
• Phil Litos, Chief Operating Officer, Bostonian Group

Therapeutic Pathways: Diabetes Type II

The age of molecular medicine has now shown us that many diseases of aging are pathway driven.   This panel will feature academic researchers, biotech and pharma companies working in this disease space and developing molecules utilizing different mechanisms of action.

Moderator:Moderator: Silvia Corvera,  Professor, Program in Molecular Medicine,  University of Massachusetts Medical School

Speakers:

• Tomas Landh, Director, Strategy and Sourcing, Diabetes Research Unit, Novo Nordisk
• William Bachovchin, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Arisaph Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Mike Jirousek, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer,Catabasis
• Paul Young, Chief Scientific Officer, Syndexa Pharmaceuticals

What will biomanufacturing look like in 2025?

Turns out that New England is a global leader in biomanufacturing. The panel will focus on the key differentiators that set biomanufacturing here apart and discuss what the sector will look like in the next decade.  As the industry shifts to different kinds of products, such as combination products, cell therapies and nanomaterials. History with the molecule will be more important than ever in delivering quality, compliant, and successful products.  More than ever, having manufacturing assets proximate to core research will affect success at the drug development transition point and beyond.

Moderator:

• Mickey Koplove

Speakers:

• Michael Cicio, VP Operations and Site Manager, New England Operations, Lonza Biologics
• Ralph Lambalot, DVP Biologics Development & Manufacturing Launch, Abbott Laboratories
• Scott Lauder, Senior Director and Global Head, Protein and Cell Sciences, EMD Serono
• Carl W. Lawton, Director, Massachusetts Biomanufacturing Center, UMass Lowell

Pharma ’s Perspective on the “Massachusetts’ Pipeline” and how to keep Mass as the Center of Innovation and R&D Partnerships (Charles Suites – East Tower)

In the past few years, it has become clear to most healthcare industry experts that Massachusetts is now the undisputed industry leader in terms of the concentration of medical innovation, biotech entrepreneurial talent, and healthcare investment capital. We can now add the growing presence of pharma companies seeking proximity to this expertise to the list. For this reason, the EBD Group has partnered with MassBio for the third year in a row to hold the premier North American Partnering event, BioPharm America, in Boston this September. The long-term goal is to keep this event in Boston as one of the 2-3 must-attend industry deal making events of the year. 

Moderator: Imran Nasrullah, Head of Strategic Alliances, T1D First

Speakers:

• Brian Fenton, Senior Director Business Development, Shire HGT
• Karen Gallant, Vice President SPBD Infection, AstraZeneca

Platforms: Deal-making Profiles of Recent Success Stories

This panel will showcase recent deals and discuss the elements critical to success.

Moderator:

• Philip McGurk, Senior Director, Pfizer, Inc.

Speakers:

• Daniel J. Curran, Vice President, Business and Corporate Development, Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company
• Tillman Gerngross, Founder and CEO, Adimab
• Dan Koerwer , Head of Market & Business Development, BIND Biosciences
• Emily Minkow, Assoc. Director of BD, Celgene Corporation
• Deanna M. Petersen, Vice President Business Development,  Shire HGT

Personalized Medicine: Is Next Generation Sequencing Really the Answer?

This panel will feature industry representatives discussing what they feel will be the next “game changer” in in data collection and storage that can be built to scale.

Moderator:

• David Resnick, co-leader, Patents practice, Nixon Peabody

Speakers:

• Barrett Bready, CEO, Nabsys
• Kevin Hrusovsky, Senior Vice President and President, Life Sciences and Technology, PerkinElmer
• Scott D. Patterson, PhD, Executive Director, Medical Sciences, Amgen Inc.
• Thomas Scholl, Vice President, Research & Development, Integrated Genetics/LabCorp

Therapeutic Pathways: Hepatitis C

The age of molecular medicine has now shown us that many diseases of aging are pathway driven.   This panel will feature academic researchers, biotech and pharma companies working in this disease space and developing molecules utilizing different mechanisms of action.

Moderator:

• Barbara McGovern, Associate Professor, Tufts Univ. School of Medicine, Div. of Inf. Dis., Lemuel Shattuck Hosp.

Speakers:

• John Z. Sullivan-Bólyai, Vice President, Clinical Research, Idenix
• Donnie McGrath, Global Head, Virology and Neuroscience Strategic Transactions, Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Yat Sun Or, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Research & Development and Chief Scientific Officer, Enanta
  
  

From Academia to Industry: When Co-owners are not Co-collaborators

Top tier hospitals and academics are increasingly empowered by advanced bio-computation, patient access and care, and knowledge expertise-- valuable resources for an industry faced with a productivity crisis. Biotechnology companies build value and create path-breaking medicines to fuel the industry pipeline.  Through collaborations, translational research moves to clinical development.  Yet, co-ownership of new intellectual property arising from academic-industry collaborations increasingly obstructs company life-cycle growth and success.  Are AMCs killing the golden goose by hampering their abilities to create value? Do companies undervalue the contributions of academia towards their own success?

Moderator:

• John Hession, Partner, Venture Capital Financings and Emerging Companies, Cooley, LLP

Speakers:

• Nurjana Bachman, Business Development Manager, Children's Hospital Boston
• Brian M. Gallagher, Jr., Partner, SR One Ltd.
• Jay Mohr, Managing Director, Locust Walk Partners
• Vinit Nijhawan, Managing Director, Technology Development Office, Boston University

Virtual Companies vs. Bricks and Mortar in MA

In this decade, we witnessed the emergence of virtual companies.   “Capital efficiency!” say the venture capitalists.  While virtual companies help venture returns, the net effect on economic development seems less impactful (although, many support industries like CROs and CMOs have become essential).  In this Buzz Forum, we will ask which is better for Massachusetts “bricks and mortar” or virtual biotech?

Moderator:

• Martha C. Farmer, President and CEO, North Shore InnoVentures

Speakers:

• John Butler, CEO, Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals
• Eric B. Gordon, CEO and President, Atentiv Inc.
• Ed Kania, Managing Partner and Chairman, Flagship Ventures
• John J. Reddington, Chief Operating Officer, Cambridge Biomedical