Registration and Breakfast

Sessions Start

Is virtual becoming a reality?

The need to save costs, coupled with the wide range of contract services on offer at all stages of the drug discovery, development and manufacturing continuum, is fuelling a trend by bio-pharma companies to “go virtual”.

In this session we unwrap the virtual model, and ask how this trend will impact the local bio-pharma landscape in the future. How will it affect the dynamics, not just of the discovery companies and their out-sourced partners, but the suppliers of other technical and business services including laboratories, equipment, lab consumables, professional services and the local workforce?

Discovery and contract research organisations from around the region share their views on what is driving this trend. Based on the growing demand for their services, they will reveal trends in who is buying what,why and from whom. We also seek to find practical answers to questions like “what are the risks inherent in the virtual model?” and “how can you sustain a successful virtual bio-pharma company?”

Chairing the session:

Mr Stuart Henderson, Partner

Deloitte

• Dr Fiona Marston, CEO
  Novacta BioSystems Ltd
• Mr Sunil Shah, CEO
  Oxygen Healthcare Ltd
• Dr Beatrice Leigh, CEO
  Cresset BioMolecular Discovery Ltd
• Dr Stuart Travers, Co Founder
  Sentinel Oncology Ltd
• Dr Tom Weaver, CEO
  Geneservice Ltd

Networking Lunch

Keynote Speakers

Chaired by Mr Paul Edwards CEO, Ruston Poole International plc

Afternoon Break

Predators or Prey?

Does size matter when it comes to snapping up companies?

Nowadays its not just major pharma and big biotechs that have an appetite for acquisitions. There’s evidence that younger and smaller biotechs in Cambridge are also hungry for good acquisition candidates.

We find out what is catalysing these spending sprees, and examine the acquisition process from the point of view of both the buyer and the seller. Is this level of M&A activity just a passing phase, or here to stay? We ask how the VCs are influencing these buying decisions, and explore what CEOs need to do in order to survive and prosper in the M&A jungle.

Chairing the session:

Mr Martyn Postle, Director

Cambridge Healthcare and Biotech Ltd

• Dr Ian Tomlinson, CSO
  Domantis Ltd
• Mr David Phillips, SVP Sales & Marketing
  BioFocus DPI

• Mrs Susan Lowther, CFO
  BioWisdom Ltd
• Dr Steve Burton, CEO
  Prometic Biosciences Ltd
• Mr Julian Attfield, CEO
  GeneMedix plc

Welcome from ERBI Chairman and presentation of regional awards
Dr Gordon Baxter

ERBI Update
Jeanette Walker, Business Development Director

Close of Session

Networking dinner and entertainment
at Murray’s restaurant on site at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus