The biomedical industry is under enormous pressure to produce faster results, while also finding ways to reduce costs. Examples abound in one industry after another of how researchers have gained tremendous advantages by collaborating on pre-competitive efforts, but such efforts have been limited in biomedical research, where researchers often find it difficult to openly share data within their own organization, much less with competitors. Working together, sharing information, and data sets and costs, all have significant potential for improved performance, but only when such efforts make use of best practices and lessons learned from existing projects.

Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s Collaborative Innovation in Biomedicine aims to bring together a number of experts with practical experience in organizing, managing, funding, and getting results from such projects. While there are real challenges with shared resources, IP protection, differing goals, and finding ways to equalize value contributions and benefits gains, some of the biggest challenges are based on firmly held beliefs about the risks of working together and narrow conceptions of what really constitute pre-competitive space. A key goal of the program is to provide attendees with a number of key strategies for identifying when and how collaborative innovation can and should be encouraged, as well as when such efforts are less likely to produce useful results.

Coverage Includes:

• Case studies of successful consortia and collaborations
• Strategies for dealing with the challenge of shared intellectual property
• Strategies and technology for facilitating data sharing
• Novel approaches for identifying collaborative information and partners
• Update on programs organized by the Critical Path Institute
• Update on European efforts under Innovative Medicines Initiative
• Expanded thinking about what constitutes pre-competitive space
• Collaborative development and evaluation of new technology and software
• Overcoming challenges and resistance for successful collaboration
• Collaborative efforts with biomarkers, target validation, chemistry, drug safety and other applications

Preliminary Agenda

Introduction and Overview

Building a System of Trust as a Foundation for Collaborative Innovation

Robert Porter Lynch, CEO, The Warren Company

Talk Title to be Announced

Elizabeth Gribble Walker, Ph.D., Director, Predictive Safety Testing Consortium, Critical Path Institute (tentative)

Is Open Innovation Right for Pharma?

Jackie Hunter, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Science Environment Development, GlaxoSmithKline

The Long Tail in Collaborative Problem Solving: Experience with Internet-Facilitated Collaborative Innovation, Internally and with Vendors and Partners

Robin Spencer, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Research Centers of Emphasis, Pfizer, Inc.

Data Sharing

Talk Title to be Announced

Les Jordan, Chief Technology Strategist, Microsoft Life Sciences

Reaching Out to Collaborators on the Cloud: Crowd-Sourcing for Pharmaceutical Research

Sean Ekins, Ph.D., Collaborations Director, Research & Development, Collaborative Drug Discovery

Management and Mining of Pre-Competitive Translational Research Data

Sandor Szalma, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Research & Development Informatics, Centocor R&D, Inc.

Collaboration in Biological Space

Treating Target Validation as Space for Pre-Competitive Collaboration

Speaker to be Announced

Open Pharmacological Space: A New Innovative Medicines Initiative Collaboration

Bryn Williams-Jones, Ph.D., Associate Research Fellow; Head, eBiology, Pfizer, Inc.

The European Cancer Biomarker Discovery Consortium

Laszlo Takacs, Ph.D., Founder, CSO & General Director, Biosystems International

Update on the NIH Biomarkers Consortium Efforts

Shawnmarie Mayrand-Chung, Ph.D., NIH Program Director, The Biomarkers Consortium, NIH

Collaboration in Drug Development
and Chemistry

The Pistoia Chemistry Alliance

Ramesh Durvasula, Ph.D., Director, Chemistry Informatics, Research Informatics & Automation, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Experience with ChEMBL: An Open Access Drug Discovery Database

John Overington, Ph.D., Team Leader, Chemogenomics, EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus

Experience with and Prospects for Collaborative Drug Safety Databases

Darrell Abernethy, Ph.D., Associate Director, Drug Safety, Office of Clinical Pharmacology, Food and Drug Administration

Talk Title to be Announced

Max Fehlmann, Ph.D., President & CEO, Quebec Consortium of Drug Discovery

For more details on the conference, please contact:
Phillips Kuhl
President
Cambridge Healthtech Institute
T: (+1) 781-972-5410
E: pkuhl@healthtech.com

For partnering and sponsorship information, please contact:
Arnie Wolfson
Manager, Business Development
Cambridge Healthtech Institute
T: (+1) 781-972-5431
E: awolfson@healthtech.com