USAIC’s 2012 Summit: Partnering progress

US—India BioPharma and Healthcare Summit 2012 is all set to act as a platform for global R&D leaders to converge and share their views

Our News Bureau – Mumbai

The USA-India Chamber of Commerce (USAIC), a bilateral Chamber of Commerce is organising its annual US-India BioPharma and Healthcare Summit on May 11, 2012 at the Hyatt Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Express Pharma is a media partner to the event.
The Summit will focus on overcoming the barriers to building collaborative partnerships between the Indian and global companies. The agenda for 2012 Summit is a result of a post summit strategy session held in Delhi in November last year. The brainstorming session was attended by over 40 prominent CEOs, Secretary Biotechnology, Secretary S&T, DCGI and several joint secretaries.
Panel discussions and keynotes at the event will cover Drug Discovery & Development, Emerging Markets, Licensing, Industry—Academic Partnerships, Clinical Research, Funding Innovation and Cross Border M&A trends. There will be a specific, high-powered panel discussion on oncology deliberating on the science, research trends and investor perspective.
There will be exclusive ‘by invitation-only’ strategy sessions focused on industry-academic partnerships co-chaired by Noble Laureate Philip Sharp of MIT and Dr Sridaran Natesan of Sanofi. External R&D strategies session will be co-chaired by Dr Rick Connell of Pfizer, Dr Sandeep Gupta of Endo Pharma and Sri Mosur of Jubilant Life Sciences.
Dr Elias Zerhouni, President Global R&D-Sanofi, Dr John Leonard, Senior Vice President R&D – Abbott, Dr Bill Hait, Head of R&D – Johnson & Johnson Pharma, Dr Ivan Gergel, Executive Vice President R&D- Endo Pharma, Dr Michael Rosenblatt, Executive Vice President & CMO – Merck & Co., Dr George Scangos, CEO – Biogen Idec, Dr Roger Glass, Director-Fogarty International Center (NIH) and Dr Peter Mueller, Global Head of R&D- Vertex Pharmaceuticals are some of the prominent, global R&D heads of leading pharma companies who will be attending the Summit.
USAIC’s annual Summit is attended year after year by senior industry executives, heads of global BioPharma companies as well as academic leaders since it offers lots of potential opportunities and practical strategies.

“Our annual summit is a purpose driven initiative to foster innovation and collaborative research between the global BioPharma industry and India,” said Karun Rishi, President of the USA-India Chamber of Commerce. I encourage the active participation of all stakeholders who share our purpose of working together for an innovation driven healthier world,” said Rishi.

Srikant Kumar Jena, Minister of State for Chemicals & Fertilizers said, “India offers vast opportunities for drug discovery and development for global pharma companies. USA-India Chamber of Commerce has been playing a vital role to facilitate collaborative research partnerships by bringing key stakeholders together to foster innovation in drug discovery and development. The Summit gains more prominence in view of developing global partnerships to deliver affordable innovations to the masses through strategic thinking and ground breaking solutions.
“With each year, the USA-India Chamber of Commerce has been growing in strength and enabling fruitful partnerships between global and Indian companies. The Oncology theme for this year’s US-India BioPharma Summit is an endeavour to give a new dimension of disease focus to this platform,” said KV Subramaniam, Advisory Board member and CEO of Reliance Life Sciences.
Dr Michael Rosenblatt, Executive Vice President and CMO, Merck & Co. and an Advisory Board member added, “Innovation, patient safety and global access are more intertwined – and more critical to improving lives around the world – than ever before. We must reinvent healthcare innovation, creating new models that invite broad cross-sector collaboration, so that we innovate not only in the laboratory, but also create new kinds of partnerships based on the realisation that medical advances mean nothing unless they reach the patients who need them most. The Summit brings us closer to this goal by enabling exchange of essential ideas and opinions.”
As the pharmaceutical industry continues to globalise, forums such as USAIC’s US-India BioPharma and Healthcare Summit are very valuable to fully realise the Research and Development potential both in India and working with Indian companies said Dr John Leonard, Senior Vice President Pharma R&D, Abbott and an Advisory Board member.
Dr William Chin, Executive Dean of Research, Harvard Medical School and an Advisory Board member stated, “USAIC’s annual US-India BioPharma and Healthcare Summit continues to be a major forum for the open discussion of key BioPharma/Healthcare issues and ideas. It is also an ideal place to meet major industry and academic leaders, and a launching pad for collaborative partnerships. It should not be missed.” Chin is also the Master of Ceremonies for the 2012 Summit.
Boston Consulting Group is the Knowledge Partner for the Summit. Regarding BCG’s involvement in the conference, Bart Janssens, a partner in BCG’s Mumbai office stated, “As we shared last year, share of India in global R&D spending increased by more than ten times between 2002-2009 (albeit off a small base). To sustain the past growth and capture its fair share, the focus of this year’s position paper has been to flesh out a practical road-map towards building a comprehensive innovation ecosystem in India.”

For Summit information and registration, please visit www.usaindiachamber.org or send Email to info@usaindiachamber.org