Mid-Atlantic Bio

Nov 02, 2009

Mid-Atlantic Bio Preview
WhatCanBiotechDoForYou.com

On November 4-6, the Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference will be held at the Washington D.C. Convention Center. The event brings together people from all over the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond including national and international industry leaders, government representatives, executives, researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, and professional services firms—representing 30 states and 10 countries—in a unique forum to promote networking, business expansion, and technical-knowledge sharing.

The event plays host to the biotechnology community as well as a forum for broader issues that affect the world beyond biotech, including healthcare reform. Steve Usdin, Senior Editor, BioCentury Publications, Inc. will moderate the Healthcare Policy panel on Thursday November 5th from 9:00 – 10:30am. Usdin said that unfortunately recent biomedical innovation has not been factored enough into healthcare reform legislation despite the fact that “the future of many companies is dependent on healthcare reform that will pave the way for many biomedical innovations.” Usdin is excited to have “important people who shape public policy on the panel” including Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Representatives Charles Boustany (R-La.) and Anna Eshoo, (D-Calif.), and Tony Zook, CEO of AstraZeneca North America http://midatlanticbio.org/conference/program/. Usdin predicts the hot topics for the Healthcare Policy panel will be the pending legislation on biosimilars and the Biotech R&D tax credit for companies with fewer than 250 employees. Both measures “will have an impact on biotech companies’ abilities to get returns on their novel therapies” for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Aside from the Healthcare Policy panel there are many other sessions that cover biotechnology’s breadth across several areas. On Thursday November 5th, Brenda Gavin, Quaker BioVentures, will moderate the panel If Venture Capital Is Broken, Why Are So Many People Still Doing It? Friday November 6th the agenda will feature the Biomarkers and Personalized Medicine: Challenges and Opportunities panel with Amy Miller, Public Policy Director of the Personalized Medicine Coalition.

From venture capital, to healthcare reform, to the future of personalized medicine, Mid-Atlantic Bio will be the place to discuss the major bioscience, capital, and policy issues facing our society today.

WhatCanBiotechDoForYou.com will be at the Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference, if you plan on attending and are interested in sharing with our readership a development in biotech, drop us an e-mail: info@whatcanbiotechdoforyou.com

J. Spector is a writer for WhatCanBiotechDoForYou.com.

http://www.whatcanbiotechdoforyou.com/2009/11/mid-atlantic-bio-preview/