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 BioForum

With the number of programs on the rise, we encourage you to check this page regularly to keep up-to-date on all of the Oregon Bio programs and event specifics.

We are always open to new ideas and member input as this improves our performance and thus our value to the community. Feel free to share your feedback, comments, concerns or ideas with us.

Here are our upcoming events:

Bio Forum 2012


BioForum 2012 - A Special Lunchtime Event with FDA Representative Dr. Seyfert-Margolis!
Driving Biomedical Innovation: Initiatives for Improving Products for Patients

The FDA is taking steps to drive biomedical innovation while improving the health of Americans. Oregon's Bioscience Industry is an intregral part of this initiative. The first BioForm of 2012 will discuss the FDA's blueprint for these process changes and how the changes pertain to Oregon's Bioscience Industry.

The FDA Initiative includes:

  • Rebuilding FDA’s small business outreach services
  • Building the infrastructure to drive and support personalized medicine
  • Creating a rapid drug development pathway for important targeted therapies
  • Harnessing the potential of data mining and information sharing while protecting patient privacy
  • Improving consistency and clarity in the medical device review process
  • Training the next generation of innovators
  • Streamlining and reforming FDA regulations

To download the full initiative, click here.


Speaker: Dr. Vicki L. Seyfert-Margolis 

Dr. Seyfert-Margolis, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor for Science Innovation and Policy for the FDA Commissioner’s Office. Dr. Seyfert-Margolis focuses on initiatives in regulatory science and innovation, personalized medicine and scientific computing and informatics. Previously, she served as Chief Scientific Officer at Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), a non-profit consortium of researchers seeking new treatments for diseases of the immune system. At ITN, she oversaw the development of more than 20 centralized laboratory facilities, and the design and execution of biomarker discovery studies for over 25 Phase II clinical trials. As part of the biomarker efforts, she established construction of a primer library of 1,000 genes that may be involved in establishing and maintaining immunologic tolerance and co-discovered genes that may mark kidney transplant tolerance. Dr. Seyfert-Margolis was also an Adjunct Associate Professor within the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to academia, she served as Director of the Office of Innovative Scientific Research Technologies at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, where she worked to integrate emerging technologies into existing immunology and infectious disease programs. Dr. Seyfert-Margolis completed her Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. Dr. Seyfert-Margolis has co-authored numerous publications and has lectured internationally on various topics.

When: Thursday, February 16, 2012 from 11:30 a.m to 1:30 p.m
Where: Schwabe, Williamson and Wyatt, PacWest Center 1211 SW 5th Ave., Portland, OR
Cost: $25 Members, $40 Non-members, $15 Students, registration fee includes lunch.

To register, click here.

Event Sponsor:                                               Speaker Sponsor:

                   




PAST BIOFORUMS
BioForum 2011

Fostering early stage collaboration to drive pharma R&D:  An overview of the Pfizer approach

Rising R&D budgets in the pharmaceutical industry are producing relatively fewer returns with respect to the numbers of new medicines introduced.  This, coupled with flattened revenue stream, is forcing the industry to consider transformative approaches for how to best build out their pipelines.  

A key element of these new strategies involves developing more effective ways to work with academia and early-stage startups to collaboratively advance translational scientific opportunities and technologies.  Pfizer is exploring multiple avenues for deploying their early stage externalization strategy. 

Gregory S. Naeve, Ph.D., Head, Strategic Research Partnerships and External R&D Innovation, for the Worldwide Research and Development division of Pfizer Inc. will discussed how Pfizer has launched

 a focused effort with their External Research and Development Innovation (ERDI) group and the other is with the Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) network.  An overview of how these two synergistic programs work will be presented, and the short term and long term objectives will be discussed.


SPEAKER: 
Gregory S. Naeve, Ph.D.
Head, Strategic Research Partnerships
External R&D Innovation, Worldwide Research & Development
Pfizer Inc.
Dr. Naeve is currently the Head of Pfizer’s San Francisco office for Strategic Research Partnerships in the External Research, Development, & Innovation group. Most recently he worked for The Column Group, a San Francisco-based life science venture fund focused on investing in early stage therapeutic opportunities. Prior to that he was the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Parallax Biosystems, a company he co-founded to develop novel molecular detection platforms with applications in pre-clinical drug discovery and diagnostics. Before Parallax he held positions at Neurocrine Biosciences and Amgen working to develop new therapies for neurodegenerative disorders. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Southern California.


When: October 20, 2011 7:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Where: Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, PacWest Center, 1211 S.W. 5th Ave, Suite 1900, Portland, OR

Cost: $20.00 for members, $35.00 for nonmembers, and $10.00 for students


 


BioForum 2011: Deciding to Go Commercial

View PowerPoint Presentation Here

As an emerging pharmaceutical or biotech company develops its first few assets, its leaders face a key strategic question:  Do they license their assets out to larger partners at some appropriate point in development, or do they take the somewhat riskier (but potentially more lucrative) approach of becoming a fully integrated pharmaceutical company and develop an internal commercialization capability?  While strong arguments can be made in favor of either strategy, there are several considerations to make when deciding which approach may be best for a company to take?  At any growth-oriented company, resources are far from endless, so trade-offs will need to be measured and made.  The cost of building commercial capabilities must be considered along with the specific functions to be built and the roles each function will serve.  The complexity of the market—or markets in some cases—in which a company might enter should be considered as well.  Regardless of the path a company decides to follow, timing is critical.  In most cases, there is both a limited financing window and a limited partnering window in order to move forward.  Any decision that is made may impact not only the first asset to go to market, but the resources available to advance the remaining assets in a company’s portfolio, as well.

In this session, participants will discuss the pros and cons of building an internal commercial capability, as well as a possible framework that CEOs can use for evaluating their strategic options.

Jon W. McGarity is the Executive Vice President of Campbell Alliance, the premier management consulting firm specializing in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.  Previously he was the President and CEO of EthiX Associates which he founded in February 1996 and is a consultancy business serving the business needs of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

View speaker's full bio here.

When: May 12, 2011  7:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Where: Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, PacWest Center, 1211 S.W. 5th Ave, Suite 1900, Portland, OR
Cost:  $20.00 for members, $35.00 for nonmembers, and $10.00 for students

Sponsored By:

         


BioForum 2011: Creative Financing for Early Stage Life Science Businesses

The Oregon Bioscience Association invites you and your colleagues to join the ongoing conversation about funding opportunities for early stage businesses.  This session will not only offer networking opportunities, but will also provide guidance to early stage businesses about the available options for creative financing as an alternative to venture capital and angel funding.  Speakers and attendees will explore government funds, foundation grants, and other creative strategies.  The speakers provide a wealth of experience in and working with companies seeking funds at various stages. Continental breakfast, coffee and juice will be available.

Participants can take away innovative strategies to find and maximize new sources of funding.  Speakers include key experts who bring broad knowledge in fund development:

  • Mark J. Ahn, Ph.D. is principal at Pukana Partners, Ltd. which provides strategic consulting to life science companies; and associate professor, Global Management at Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University and Creighton University.  
  • Jeff S. King, Ph.D., is chief operating officer at Virogenomics, a biotechnology development company, and is a board member with the Oregon Bioscience Association.  
  • H. Stewart Parker is currently the commercialization consultant for the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (WBBA), assisting emerging companies in their business planning, strategy, and fundraising.  She is an entrepreneur and founded Targeted Genetics Corporation (Nasdaq: TGEN), a Seattle biotechnology company formed to develop gene based treatments for acquired and inherited disease. 

Speakers' Biographies

When:  Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011; 7:30 - 9 a.m.
Where: Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, PacWest Center, 1211 S.W. 5th Ave, Suite 1900, Portland, OR
Cost:  $20.00 for members, $35.00 for nonmembers, and $10.00 for students



BioForum: The State of Medical Innovation

When: October 21, 2010, 7:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Where: Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, PacWest Center, 1211 SW 5th Ave, Suite 1900, Portland, OR

The economic future of Oregon and our country as a whole depends on the biosciences. A strong bioscience industry is critical to stem the rising tide of medical costs, family health care and provide human health benefits to our community. Come join us for a lively discussion with Walt Plosila, PhD, Senior Advisor to Battelle's Technology Partnership Practice.  Dr. Plosila will report the results of a Battelle study, commissioned by the Council for American Medical Innovation (CAMI), on the state of American medical innovation. He will be joined by Dennis McNannay, Executive Director of Oregon Bioscience Association, to provide the Oregon perspective and some preliminary data from the latest Oregon Bio economic impact study on the local industry.

Dr. Plosila Biography

Cost: $20.00 for members, $35.00 for nonmembers, and $10.00 for students

Sponsored By:

                                                                         



BioForum: Idea to Venture in Biotechnology - Realizing the Promise of Life Science Innovation

When: August 26, 2010, 7:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Where: Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, PacWest Center, 1211 SW 5th Ave, Suite 1900, Portland , OR

Download the presentation:  Part I (3MB) Part II (2MB) Part III (6MB)

We didn’t leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. Disruptive biotechnology platforms from emerging companies hold great promise for exploiting innovation, but often face legitimacy hurdles due to their liability of newness. Nascent firms must learn new roles with limited precedent, and establish ties with an environment that may not fully understand or value their existence.

After three decades and over $90 billion in 2009 revenues, the biotechnology industry has created important breakthroughs in human therapeutics, devices and diagnostics. Also, as the market capitalization of the biotech industry surpassing big pharma companies shows, the biotech industry is also an important source of value and new venture creation with over 700 publicly listed firms in North America, the European Union, and Asia-Pacific.

Are we ready for the challenges ahead? This discussion will explore the hype, hope, and opportunities ahead in the context of innovation, performance and value creation. Reviewing global and local examples, we will consider how Oregon-based life sciences firms can enhance their venture readiness to achieve legitimacy in the scientific community, mobilize resources and talent, and attain commercial success.

About the Speaker

Mark J. Ahn, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Global Management at Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University; and Principal at Pukana Partners, Ltd. which provides strategic consulting to life science companies.  He previously served as Chair, Science & Technology Management, Victoria University at Wellington, New Zealand. Dr. Ahn was also founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Hana Biosciences.  Prior to Hana, he served as Vice President, Hematology and corporate officer at Genentech, Inc., as well as held positions of increasing responsibility at Amgen and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Dr. Ahn also serves on public and venture capital-backed Board of Directors for RXi Pharmaceuticals, Access Pharmaceuticals, Genesis Biopharma, Periocyte, and Mesynthes.

Dr. Ahn has published widely in the biotechnology industry including recently released Building the Case for Biotechnology ( http://www.buildingbiotechnology.com/casebook/ ).

 

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