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BioPharm America™ Announces Additional Conference Program Highlights

BioPharm America™ Announces Additional Conference Program Highlights

Carlsbad, CA. and Atlanta, GA., August 19, 2008: In the final weeks to the start of BioPharm America™, September 9-10, 2008 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Atlanta, GA, EBD Group today announced new program highlights covering a wide selection of important industry topics.

The additional program highlights include:

• Rediscovering Anti-Infectives
  Big pharma has been reluctant to enter the anti-infectives arena due to pricing pressure, lower profit margins, short therapeutic regimens, manufacturing challenges, and regulatory problems associated with developing drugs for novel microbial targets.
  
  However, the emergence of pandemics, threats of bioterrorism, the role of combination therapies and advances in molecular biology and nanotechnology have ignited big pharma's interest in the anti-infectives space to build up pipelines through licensing agreements and acquisitions.
  
  Dr. William D. Johnston, President, BioBusiness Strategies, Inc. will moderate a panel featuring four leading authorities in anti-infectives, Dr. Edwin W. Ades, Associate Director for Laboratory Science; Division of Bacterial Diseases, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Mike Bonney, President and CEO, Cubist; Dr. Michael Goldblatt, President and CEO, Functional Genetics; and Dr. Anthony Sedgwick, CEO, Novacta Therapeutics.
  
  This panel will look at the market opportunities in infectious diseases from a research and a business development related perspective, tackling important questions such as: What are the most promising research areas, targets and drugs for infectious diseases? What commercial opportunities are present in vaccines and antibodies?  Which business and regulatory models will attract partners and investors? 

• New Financing Trends in Drug Development and the Role of Big Pharma and Private Equity
  Growing a biopharmaceutical start-up in today's tough financing environment requires the entrepreneur to seek sources of financing beyond the traditional venture capitalist.  In addition, the larger biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are seeking to maximize their view of the biotechnology platforms that might deliver tomorrow's blockbusters. 
  
  The major biopharmaceutical companies have established venture capital arms with a dual purpose of 1) significant return on investment and 2) providing insight into emerging technologies and companies that might provide future opportunities for acquisition or partnership.  The entrepreneur, in turn, finds value from the depth of knowledge and market validation of a large pharma investor.
  
  Dr. Thomas H. Callaway, General Partner, Georgia Venture Partners will lead a panel of corporate venture capitalists including John Richard, Senior Venture Partner, Nomura Phase 4 Ventures, and Dr. Rajeev Dadoo, Principal, SR One to discuss the emergence of the investment arm of big pharma and how the entrepreneur should approach this potential source of financing.

• The Science and Business of Alzheimer's Disease Therapy
  In the last 15 years the major advances in Alzheimer's have resulted from identifying appropriate biomarker endpoints that can track the progression of the disease. However, current cognitive scoring instruments do not accurately track the initiation and progress of the disease until it is too late. There are a number of surrogate biochemical biomarker endpoints that are being developed in addition to innovations in medical imaging that may inform progression and efficacy of new treatment modalities.

  Moderated by Dr. Alan Rudolph, Chief Executive Officer, Adlyfe, this session will bring together a panel of scientific and industry leaders from small biotech and large pharma companies with active discovery and development programs to discuss novel advances in the search for effective Alzheimer's disease therapeutics. This panel features Dr. Martin Tolar, Chief Business Officer, CoMentis, and Dr. Shafique Virani, Director Global Business Development, Roche, who will discuss ongoing research and provide an overview of recent deals and business development trends in this area.

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