tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89927390654450393282024-03-13T09:33:05.816-07:00California Healthcare InstituteNicole Beckstrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14428210901836891139noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-64729375423075633352013-03-01T16:24:00.000-08:002013-03-01T16:24:37.317-08:00CHI Spotlight: CHI Recognizes Member Companies During 20th Anniversary <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In honor of CHI’s 20th anniversary celebration, CHI President and CEO <a href="http://www.chi.org/about/leadership/gollaher.aspx">David L. Gollaher, Ph.D.</a> will be recognizing member companies with commemorative plaques suitable for hanging or displaying at company headquarters. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Michael Mussallem and David Gollaher</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Feb. 19, CHI recognized <a href="http://www.edwards.com/Pages/Default.aspx">Edwards Lifesciences’</a> leadership and dedication to improving California’s environment for biomedical innovation. Edwards Chairman and CEO Michael Mussallem, who serves as a CHI board member and past board chairman, received the plaque from CHI's Gollaher at the company’s Irvine headquarters. Edwards is the global leader in the science of heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company partners with clinicians to develop innovative technologies in the areas of structural heart disease and critical care monitoring that enable them to save and enhance lives.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"> David Pyott and David Gollaher</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Feb. 26, Gollaher visited the Irvine headquarters of <a href="http://www.allergan.com/index.htm">Allergan</a>, where he presented a commemorative plaque to Allergan Chairman, President and CEO David E.I. Pyott, who serves as chairman of CHI. Allergan was honored for its continued commitment to California’s biomedical community. Pyott joined Allergan in January 1998 as President and CEO. As one of only three CEOs in the 63-year history of the company, Pyott has transformed Allergan from a small eye care business to a global specialty pharmaceutical and medical device company, with leadership positions in six medical specialties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI is recognizing all of its members during this 20th anniversary occasion. Check your mailbox soon for the chance to display your own 20th anniversary plaque. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-80943324499934486512013-02-08T12:05:00.000-08:002013-02-08T12:05:49.952-08:00Legislator Spotlight: Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr. Richard Pan</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since being elected to the Assembly in 2010, <a href="http://panforassembly.com/about-pan/">Dr. Richard Pan</a> has worked with a variety of partners on legislation and other efforts that help Californians build safer, healthier communities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As chair of the Assembly committee on health, Pan focuses on expanding transparency and oversight of government agencies involved in building healthier communities, as well as ensuring federal healthcare reforms are implemented effectively and efficiently in California.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pan teamed up with Consumer Federation of California and the California Alliance of Retired Americans to remove expired medications and baby food from store shelves. And working with parents throughout California, Pan made sure schools and communities have the live-saving information they need to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As director of the UC Davis pediatric residency program, Pan created <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/pediatrics/education/chpt.html">Communities and Physicians Together</a> to make UC Davis medical students available to work with families and local associations on projects that improve health in their neighborhoods. As co-founder and chair of Healthy Kids Healthy Future, Pan helped secure health, dental and vision coverage for more than 65,000 local children. He helped create the Sacramento Health Improvement Project, bringing together doctors, hospitals, clinics and community leaders to ensure that all Sacramento County residents have access to primary health care.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pan continues to practice medicine at <a href="http://www.theeffort.org/loc_oak_park.htm">The Effort Oak Park Community Clinic</a>, pursuing his passion for working with families to build healthier communities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What do you feel is the largest contribution the biomedical community has made to California?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The largest contribution is certainly the treatments that are saving lives and reducing morbidity. The side benefits, of course, are the major contributions to the California economy, certainly in terms of job creation and in reducing disease.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What has your experience as a physician been like with our community?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I am a general pediatrician, so most of my work is on the primary care end. I’ve taken care of children with diseases that are very rare and require specialized treatments. We are in the midst of a genetic revolution and are better defining how genes attack disease. We are also in the very beginning stages of a neuroscience revolution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the end, we are going to turn this into treatments to help families. It’s going to be the biotech community that develops these treatments and helps disseminate them. That’s what is so important about our investment in biotech and being a leader in biotech here in California. We can do the research, go out and conduct studies, and, in the end, turn it into treatments that help families.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: How well do you think genetic sequencing is being integrated into the clinical practice?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: What we have to do is turn that data into information. We are getting to the point, from what I understand, that you can sequence a person’s genome for $1,000. But what kind of information can we get out of that, and how can we use it to improve a person’s life? As we are trying to better figure out how the brain works, there’s tremendous opportunity there in terms of mental health, which is a very large chronic disease burden.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What do you see as the University of California’s role in the biomedical community?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: As a professor at UC Davis, I’ve seen it play a very important role in not only conducting research but in creating the future workforce. These tend to be very highly trained, doctoral-level people. If you look at Silicon Valley as a model, in terms of economic development, it is a really unique ecosystem in terms of creating an environment for innovation. So, one of the things we really need to encourage in California, as we’ve done for information technology in Silicon Valley and for arts and entertainment in Hollywood, is build collaborations for the biomedical industry. That kind of interaction is critically important. And it’s why I encourage investment in higher education. For all the wonderful resources we have here in California, a highly educated workforce is really our competitive advantage. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: How do you see national healthcare reform being implemented in California?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We are moving ahead with implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We want to expand coverage to more Californians and, of course, expand access to healthcare. In the end, we can do that. We can figure out what causes disease, we can develop the treatments, but people need to be able to access it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As we look at how we try to reduce the cost of healthcare, the biggest opportunity for doing so is in the development of more effective treatments — and improving access to that. As we are looking at health reform going forward, we also need to consider how we better use our funds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What is the best way for the community to engage a member’s office</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: One way is to come and talk to us, and you can come visit the capital or district office. Educate the members about what you do, and what it takes to do it. There is very little time, given the term limits, for legislators to pick up on some of these topics and issues.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: As a healthcare provider and a legislator what do you see has the most pressing issue in CA?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Certainly one is getting our economy going right now. We are starting to see signs of improvement, but we need to continue to work on that. We need to plan for the future. To me, that is about how we can work with business and labor to try and improve economic productivity and infrastructure. We need to make sure we continue to maintain access to higher education. I really believe that we never have an excess of human talent. Part of having a productive workforce is having a healthy workforce, so we want to be sure we take care of our aging population.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We want to be sure we have a high-value business climate here in California. We will never be the cheapest place to do business, but we can be the highest value.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-9312891197742193962012-11-19T14:22:00.000-08:002012-11-19T14:22:41.663-08:00Spotlight on Academic-Biomedical Industry Collaboration: UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellman</span></td></tr>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Susan Desmond-Hellmann, M.D., MPH became the ninth chancellor of the <a href="http://www.ucsf.edu/">University of California, San Francisco</a> on Aug. 3, 2009. An oncologist and renowned biotechnology leader, Desmond-Hellmann also holds the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rock">Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock</a> Distinguished Professor appointment at UCSF. In her role as chancellor, she oversees all aspects of the university and medical center’s strategy and operations.</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Prior to joining UCSF, Desmond-Hellmann spent 14 years at <a href="http://www.gene.com/gene/index.jsp">Genentech</a>. From 2004-2009, she served as president of product development. In this role, she was responsible for Genentech’s pre-clinical and clinical development, process research and development, business development and product portfolio management. She also served as a member of Genentech’s executive committee, beginning in 1996. During her time at Genentech, several of the company’s therapeutics were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the company became the nation’s No. 1 producer of anti-cancer drug treatments.</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Industry and academia have traditionally operated at a different pace, with separate objectives. How have you addressed these challenges and what advice do you have for others who look to emulate your success?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The issue is more of having different goals, rather than a different pace, although quarterly earnings statements are definitely a driver that are foreign to most academics. We started by realizing that the old way of doing things – with pharmaceutical companies funding specific projects in a lab, then taking the results and never returning – doesn’t really work anymore. We need to start with an understanding of what academic researchers know and do well, which is advancing the core science on pathways and mechanisms of disease, and what industry partners know, which is how to take a discovery from a lab and turn it into a medicine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We’ve had a number of partnerships, such as our agreement between <a href="http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/01/11281/ucsf-sanofi-collaborate-find-new-diabetes-cures">Sanofi and our Diabetes Center</a>, in which we’ve transformed that old model into a true collaboration, with the research starting here, then moving into the industry labs, then coming back for validation, and fostering communications throughout the process. Other partners have vast libraries of compounds or antibodies that are invaluable in our research. By working together, we can create a synergy that improves the science and also makes it more applicable for translation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: How do you measure success of these academic/corporate partnerships?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We have many types of industry partnerships on campus, ranging from clinical trials to collaborations on very basic research that help us understand the mechanisms of disease. Success is measured differently for each of those. But my ultimate goal, which is shared throughout the UCSF campus, is to apply the most advanced science to improve the lives of people throughout the world. So for us, the real measure of these industry partnerships is whether they enable us to move faster and more effectively to translate the best science into real improvements for patients. That takes time, but that’s the ultimate success.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What considerations do you make before deciding to partner with a pharmaceutical company?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: There are many considerations, starting with how well our research is aligned in a specific field, and how well our strengths complement each other’s. As a public institution, it’s also very important to us that we establish some critical details up front, such as our faculty’s right to publish all results from their research – good and bad – and, where applicable, any intellectual property agreements. But, ultimately, we’re also looking for people who are aligned in our mission to translate great science into a real difference for patients worldwide.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: The <a href="http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/10/10842/ucsf-pfizer-partnership-yields-projects-aimed-clinical-trials">Pfizer-UCSF</a> partnership is unique in that it brought Pfizer labs to Mission Bay. How has the proximity helped advance key research? </span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Collaborations really are key to solving problems in science that we haven’t been able to solve, and it’s no secret that close proximity helps any relationship. Several industry neighbors have told us that being able to walk across the street, rather than calling someone from across country, is making a real difference in their collaborations with us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pfizer’s <a href="http://www.pfizer.com/research/rd_works/centers_for_therapeutic_innovation.jsp">Center for Therapeutic Innovation</a>, specifically, already has enabled UCSF and Pfizer to launch several key research collaborations at <a href="http://www.sfredevelopment.org/index.aspx?page=61">Mission Bay</a>. Those include a project studying a treatment for a blood clotting disorder known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrombosis">thrombosis</a>, a therapy for a common and often deadly form of liver disease, known as <a href="http://www.digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/nash/">non-alcoholic steatohepatitis</a>, and new therapies for the devastating condition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_fibrosis">pulmonary fibrosis</a>, which scars the lungs and impairs normal breathing.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: At a time when federal support for basic research through the <a href="http://www.nih.gov/">National Institutes of Health</a> and <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/">National Science Foundation</a> is declining, how might UCSF and academic institutes statewide continue to support groundbreaking research? </span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: These are times when all of us are learning to be more creative. We’re doing our part by making sure we’re operating as efficiently as possible and supporting things like core research facilities on campus, so individual labs have access to top-of-the-line equipment, but can share that equipment with everyone else on campus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have been fortunate to still maintain strong research funding from the National Institutes of Health, which surpassed $500 million this year, but we’re also looking at other innovative approaches. Those include industry collaborations, as well as programs like our <a href="http://pbbr.ucsf.edu/">Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research</a>, which provides seed funding to support highly innovative basic science – the blue sky projects that take big risks but have huge potential. And we’re constantly finding ways to support entrepreneurs on campus, to help make that leap into translating advances in the lab into commercial products.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: At Genentech, you supervised some of the biggest successes in drug development history. Are there parallels to be made between your business experience and the challenges you face as a chancellor?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: As at Genentech, at UCSF I oversee a team of exceptionally talented, motivated people. As chancellor, my goal is to provide all of our faculty, whether they are basic or clinical researchers, educators, or clinicians with the support they need to succeed in their work. This means understanding the challenges and obstacles they face and identifying ways to help them address them. It also means identifying, from my more distant perspective, broad opportunities that individual faculty members may not see to advance their work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given my own background, I’m very interested in translational medicine, moving our research discoveries toward the clinic, and much of my effort focuses on facilitating this effort.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: If you could change policies at the state or federal level, what would your priorities be?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I’m very interested in ensuring that federal funding for research is sustained and at least keeps pace with inflation, in order to support our thriving research enterprise. Also, I would like to see the FDA continue to work on streamlining its approval process, which would help move drugs more quickly to market, while also making it more appealing for venture capital to continue to invest in this industry. I’d also like to see more collaboration between federal funding agencies, universities and regulatory agencies, and to see more investments in innovative science.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation </span></em><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-73032146530018064312012-11-15T16:36:00.000-08:002012-11-16T11:21:52.729-08:00A Conversation with Allergan CEO David Pyott<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">David Pyott</span></td></tr>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Allergan CEO, medical aesthetics pioneer and CHI Chairman-Elect David Pyott tells us what the business of beauty can teach the medical device industry about consumer-centric medicine. This article orginally appeared on MassDevice.com. It has been republished here, in part, with permission. </span></em><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hear from Pyott in person when he joins a panel of biomedical industry executives for the <a href="http://www.massdevice.com/big-100-west">MassDevice Big 100 West</a>. CHI President and CEO David L. Gollaher, Ph.D., will moderate the panel Dec. 11 in Newport Beach. CHI members receive a discount to attend. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3313349317#"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Click here</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> for more information or to register with code CHI.</span></span></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Allergan CEO David Pyott has described himself as a "mountaineer," a "born marketer," and a bit of a masochist, but there's one thing the man undoubtedly is: A pioneer of the medical technology world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After taking the reigns of the Irvine, Calif.-based medical aesthetics giant in 1998, Pyott quickly set about transforming an eyecare company into a global juggernaut that pulls in north of $5 billion a year with a diverse line of specialty pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Pyott did so not by doubling down on conventional wisdom, but by changing the playbook. Much to the chagrin of some company executives at the time, he cut costs by 33 percent, shed Allergan's contact lens solution business and concentrated significant resources on a little-known product in the company's pipeline called Botox. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today no one needs any introduction to Botox, which is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a medical product. But the lessons of the drug and Allergan's medical aesthetics business, which makes up 40 percent of its sales (all paid for directly by consumers) could hold some significant lessons for the broader medical device world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We sat down with Pyott recently to discuss how medical aesthetics could change the way medical devices are sold and marketed to patients.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice: When Allergan bought InaMed in 2006, you said, "Now Allergan is the global leader in medical aesthetics." I'm hoping you can define what the term "medical aesthetics" means to you and how it fits within your overall approach to the Allergan business.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>David Pyott:</strong> I think I can be speaking accurately if I can say really I invented that term. I was literally sitting there, because I'm a recovering marketer, thinking "What on earth does one call the genre of Botox and its competitors?" Latisse was still a twinkle in my eye at that stage. Clearly it had something to do with improvement of appearance and so I liked the word aesthetics. But I wanted to make it very clear. This is aesthetics delivered through a physician, hence, why I chose the word medical. Breast implants were long way away from any form of cosmetics that you'd buy at the Macy's counter. But the further you got to that direction, such as physician-dispensed creams and lotions, that's probably the closest point to where the world of retail is just around the corner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>When you coined the term, how were these classifications of drugs and devices generally referred to in the medical community? Was it sort of ambiguous?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> I would say the markets were very small and I'm not sure that anybody had thought of the overarching market in such a holistic way. People were very much drilled in on the individual product segments. So, clearly by 2006 Botox had grown enormously, because we got the approval in 2001. By that stage it was probably roughly half a billion in sales. And dermal fillers, in my view, hadn't really happened in the United States. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At that point, the European market, particularly Central Europe, was probably two and a half times the consumption per capita of broader North America. And when we brought Juvederm into the Canadian and U.S. market, it probably took us three years to get up to European consumption levels. So, you can see that there is kind of a whole history in the background here of creating markets where really nothing had existed before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>Was there an a-ha moment for you in the medical aesthetics field, or is it directly tied to Botox? When you took over Allergan, it certainly wouldn't have been referred to as medical aesthetics company – it was more eyecare.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> I'm pretty sanguine about these things, because people often claim instant brilliance and I'm not sure I would ever subscribe to that theory. I think there are moments that are similar to hiking in the Sierras, a pass in the mountains as you get higher and higher</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The way I would see it is if I look at that journey, when I came to Allergan, Botox was literally an orphan drug. And I think it was probably an orphan drug in the minds of a lot of the senior management as well. And this was before the heyday of orphan drugs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I realized, listening to both people internally and then customers, that there was a huge opportunity for Botox, not only cosmetics but therapeutic, which is a different topic. That led to having investments and getting cosmetics through the FDA. So that really started in early 1998 and we got the approval three years later. And that was the beginning of the journey.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>In one of your recent earnings calls you discussed the resiliency of the dermal filler and the Botox markets, the breast implants in markets like Southern Europe, which you seemed a little bit tickled by. Is there a broader lesson here?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> When we look back, the great recession year for us was 2009. When we entered 2009, of course, none of us knew how bad it was going to be. So we were pretty cautious and the first half of that year, the whole company declined about 10 percent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But what was really interesting was that the recession, particularly in the U.S., around the world, some places you could argue maybe it never happened. Like China, Brazil, they felt they had a recession, but it was like hitting a little pothole, a very small one, and just bounced right through it. In the U.S., our market stopped declining five months after it started, and then it re-accelerated. So when we got to 2010 – in fact all of our product markets globally were already bigger than in 2008. Which, of course, I would never have dared to predict in early 2009. I was thinking, "Oh man, this is going to take years until we get back to the high-water mark."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Partly it was because of the segments of society that we probably addressed at that time, in terms of our penetration. So typically, this is kind of middle-top for income. It's not only women, probably 10 percent of the consumption's male – but women's repertoire of how they want to keep themselves looking a bit younger than their driver's license or passport, or birth certificate would say. Of course, the idea of going back to being the way you were before is not really a great option for most people. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During that phase, I literally heard about people postponing or canceling vacations or crimping on fine dining, basically to save up for Botox and Juvederm. We used to hear lots of that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>Well that's interesting too, because in the orthopedics business, we've heard tons of stories about people postponing all acute surgeries, and all other medical markets seemed to contract a bit there. </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> I think we saw a bit of that with breast augmentation surgery. That was the one that was the most heavily hit, because of course there's somewhere a good correlation to what is the out-of-pocket spend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think another comment you made which I'd like to address was, "Why is Europe doing so well?" Well, my experience has been that, basically, innovation can trump a lot of economic headwinds. We have syndicated market research, so we have the very fix on the European market and of course we know our sales even better. We're growing somewhere between – depends on the country – two and three times the speed of the market in Europe. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>You're a born marketer, I mean, when you're looking at these indications, and these products that you're going to place into there, when you look at the specialties, do you pick one that fit within that specialties where you can communicate directly to the patient? I saw some of the direct consumer advertisings you had for Botox for migraines, so you're going directly to the patient there and addressing their pain point. </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> I think really where we start is where is the technology? Where do we have a solution that in some manner improves patient care? That's always the starting point and maybe because we've looked carefully and found, time and time again we found these solutions. If I cross over, to say, Botox for a chronic migraine, one of the reasons that we chose to go down that road was because so many migraine patients have just given up. They've tried treatment after treatment, on to doctor after doctor and they're basically at home miserable. We know from consumer research we've done that these people, when they're not in sort of maximum pain, because they're probably to some degree forced to be inward-looking. Because they don't go out so often because they're in terrible pain, so they're on the Internet a lot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>When we spoke to Align Technology CEO Tom Prescott, he said that the medical device industry used to look down on the private pay model. Do you think there's still that attitude? </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> I don't think so. I mean if you look at the pressures that are facing our industry, whether it's device or pharma, I think there are huge pressures. I think a lot of both; well, industry executives realize that private pay could be an escape valve. How do you get out of some of these pressures? And we've seen that in Europe in a different field, another example of how we go to and fro between cash pay and reimbursed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In this country, artificial tears are paid for out-of-pocket. You just go down to Walgreens and you can find it on the shelf. Now, you probably as a consumer have in the back of your head that the optometrist or the ophthalmologist recommended you brand A or B, hopefully ours. We happen to be the world's No. 1 producer of artificial tears. But then in Europe, it's very interesting. There there is a bifurcated model where historically the government has paid for tears.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But, more recently, certain governments have either completely de-reimbursed tears or made it possible in parallel to introduce, I'll call it non-price regulated tears, I mean you still have the approval, right? But then you have the ability to price-relate. There's another example of where you can kind of go down two streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It shows there are ways to segment markets and of course you've got to do it within the regulatory process of that individual country.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can see there are many different angles to this question about how medical aesthetics can translate. You can come in through, "What is the regulatory framework?" You can come in through, "How do you drive the consumer element?" if you like delivering consumer or consumerized medicine. Then I suppose this is just the whole backdrop of how do you innovate, right? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MassDevice:</strong> <strong>I like the idea of how you pioneer delivery to a consumer market because there's a great desire in all the companies that we cover for growth. And it feels like they are just throwing products against the wall, seeing if they can keep the same model or expand to a different country.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>DP:</strong> Yeah, well, I mean to end on a high note, I would say, hard times often are great times to get creative, right? Because you sit there and go, "This isn't enough, we've got to find something new."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em> </span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-31240444664199020662012-11-13T10:20:00.000-08:002012-11-20T10:47:47.737-08:00Legislator Spotlight: Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rep. Jackie Speier</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://speier.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1">Rep. Jackie Speier</a>, D-Hillsborough, has championed numerous issues of importance to California's biomedical community, including reforms to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and funding increases for the National Institutes of Health. Speier, who serves as co-chair of the <a href="http://www.coalitionforlifesciences.org/cbrc">Biomedical Research Caucus</a> in the House of Representatives, represents a congressional district that includes some of the biggest names in biotech and academia, from Genentech to UCSF. In 2012, <em>Newsweek</em> named Congresswoman Speier as one of the <a href="http://speier.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=597:congresswoman-speier-named-fearless-woman-by-newsweek-magazine&catid=1:press-releases&Itemid=14">150 fearless women</a> in the world. During her more than 30 years of public service, she has passionately advocated for women's issues and health access.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: You are aware of the <a href="http://www.chi.org/industry/index.aspx">numbers</a> regarding this industry: 270,000 jobs, 2,300 California biomedical companies, $2.7 billion in VC funding, $7 billion in NIH funding. But when you think about the California life sciences sector, what does it mean to you?</span></strong> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: It means the difference between life and death, in many respects, because the drugs and medical devices that are being created are saving people’s lives and fundamentally transforming our ability to tackle the most serious and deadly diseases of our time. The life sciences sector is one of the strongest examples of the innovative spirit that is a trademark of our state. Every day, the brightest minds in our universities are unlocking scientific discoveries that will lead to companies of tomorrow and cures that were unimaginable only decades ago. This industry has become a shining example of all that is possible when we pair bright minds with a commitment to improving people’s lives. But this industry is not without its challenges. There is much we still need to do to ensure that American patients have access to these life-saving discoveries. I don’t want to say to my constituents, “You are going to get better care in Europe.” We have to be diligent and thorough, but we also have to be willing to provide compassionate care, too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: How do you plan to reinstate science as a government priority at a time when Congress is proposing cuts across the board?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: It is a priority. And it’s a priority for a vast number of Americans. You ask American voters whether or not they want to see science as a No. 1 priority and it would be overwhelmingly yes, particularly when someone is diagnosed with a very serious medical condition. So, how do you convey that to the majority right now in the House that believes that we should slash funding to the <a href="http://www.nih.gov/">NIH</a>, <a href="http://www.fda.gov/">FDA</a> & <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/">CDC</a>? I think we all have to do a better job of conveying the link not only between federal funding for medical research and scientific progress, but also, economic growth. The statistics really speak for themselves. In 2010 alone, the $26.6 billion invested by taxpayers in NIH research grants generated $68 billion in new economic activity and supported nearly 490,000 public and private sector jobs, representing a 150 percent single-year return on public investment. This isn’t just about science and saving lives, this is about supporting our economic growth and recovery. Cutting funding for these agencies isn’t just bad for our health as a nation, it’s bad economics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is also much we can do to streamline the FDA approval process, while still being thorough, and creating the pathways for companies to succeed. I make a point of visiting life science companies in my district, easily three or four a month. These companies are doing such remarkable work. Their work will potentially reduce the cost of healthcare because they are creating a smarter, more efficient healthcare system through their innovative advances. For example, we know that chemotherapy does not work on 80 percent of tumors, and, therefore, most patients would either be just as well off without that treatment altogether or benefit more from an alternative medical option. But even though we have this information, we still spend $80 billion each year on cancer therapies. This isn’t just about money, this is about sparing patients a horrific experience to try and stay alive. Part of our job is to convey that personalized medicine is not an add-on to healthcare. It is a refinement of providing healthcare to patients so that we are not administering certain therapies to people that are not going to work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Further, I envision a system where this wasted money is redirected to research that will result in additional treatment options tomorrow so chemotherapy isn’t their only recourse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: You have championed many bills to support biomedical research funding, including <a href="http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbir.htm">SBIR and STTR grants</a> that promote entrepreneurship. Talk about the importance of these to you.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I think these grants give fledging companies an opportunity to survive, and, oftentimes, to thrive. It advances our knowledge base and the science that allows us to then build the next generation of life sciences companies with new discoveries that are going to improve the quality of life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I oftentimes tell people about the meeting of a venture capitalist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Swanson">Bob Swanson</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Boyer">Herb Boyer</a>, a UCSF professor. It was a quintessential San Francisco story – two guys drinking beers at Perry’s. At the end of a three-hour meeting, they didn’t just shake hands and found a company; they founded an industry with hundreds of thousands of employees in this region. So, why wouldn’t we want to promote more relationships like that which might just create the newest industry that’s going to improve our health?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: San Mateo County received $75 million in <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/">stimulus funds</a> from HHS. Much of the money went to organizations including SRI International, Applied Biosystems, Epitomics and others. Have these projects lived up to their potential? </strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Actually, San Mateo County probably received a great deal more because stimulus funds also supported our public health system and UCSF collaborations with businesses in this county. To be honest, I’m not familiar with the outcome of the grants that are mentioned in the question but I can say this about grants for science in general: It’s almost always money put to good use. The returns on the investment almost always reverberate across many years, if not decades. For example, there are people at UCSF whose surgeries are going to be much more precise because the PET machine now exists. As I visit life science companies throughout my district, I am frequently told that SBIR grants were the source of a lot of development funding for new tests and treatments that have moved forward in this county, and from here to the four corners of the world. SBIR got a big boost through the stimulus bill. In sum, if you give a genius a dollar, it’s likely she’ll turn it into at least two dollars of value for taxpayers. The challenge is to recognize that the lead times are long, the path to commercialization too arduous in many instances, and the commitment of Congress to predictable funding weak. Rather than asking if the projects live up to their potential, perhaps we should ask if we do ourselves any favors by shortchanging human genius. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: You heard a lot over the past couple years about the issues of consistency and unpredictability at the FDA. You communicated with the FDA and helped convey dialogue with the industry’s thought leaders to discuss how we can address those issues while also maintaining the high standards of safety that the public expects and deserves. How do we ensure that that dialogue continues and that those improvements are implemented?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We need to set high expectations of our members of Congress to keep engaged with the FDA and create opportunities for the FDA and the life sciences industry to interact. Safety and efficacy are essential, but the process required to receive those results should also be predictable. The last thing we want is for the industry to come to a screeching halt. <a href="http://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/UserFees/PrescriptionDrugUserFee/default.htm">PDUFA</a> and <a href="http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/Overview/MedicalDeviceUserFeeandModernizationActMDUFMA/default.htm">MDUFA</a> were great bipartisan efforts this year. Vigilance is absolutely key to making sure that improvements at the FDA continue, we cannot afford to take our eye off the ball. I can guarantee you that Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and I will be monitoring the relationship between FDA and the life science companies for years to come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are you most proud of as a Bay Area native and graduate of two UC campuses?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I am so grateful that I was the beneficiary of advanced education at two UC campuses that were affordable. Unfortunately, we can’t say that today. My education at <a href="http://www.uchastings.edu/">UC Hastings College of Law</a> cost me $700 a year. If you account for cost of living, it should cost about $2,700 a year. The average Hastings student right now is paying $47,000 a year. We have made it unaffordable to get the kind of education I got 40 years ago. Likewise, if advanced degrees in scientific fields become prohibitively expensive at our state universities we are going to have a serious problem producing the brain trust that has historically created the life science companies that call our state home. I think we have a huge responsibility to turn this trend around.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-23578031017657537522012-10-29T10:50:00.000-07:002012-10-29T10:50:52.038-07:00CHI 2012 Keynote Spotlight: Dr. Mark Smith, President and CEO, California HealthCare Foundation<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AT5JRlF6T3g/UI67SmyAX6I/AAAAAAAAAOc/W9suj3vIucw/s1600/Photo.Mark+Smith+08_270DPI.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" qea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AT5JRlF6T3g/UI67SmyAX6I/AAAAAAAAAOc/W9suj3vIucw/s320/Photo.Mark+Smith+08_270DPI.JPG" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr. Mark Smith</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.chcf.org/about/staff/mark-smith">Dr. Mark Smith</a>, a board-certified internist who has served as president and CEO of the <a href="http://www.chcf.org/">California HealthCare Foundation</a> since its formation in 1996, will keynote <a href="http://www.chi.org/basicpage.aspx?id=10268">CHI 2012</a>, the annual meeting of biomedical executives, entreprenuers, investors and policymakers. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The event, happening Nov. 8 at Gilead Sciences in Foster City, Calif., brings together policymakers with representatives of CHI’s member organizations to discuss critical issues and opportunities facing the biomedical community. <a href="http://www.chi.org/basicpage.aspx?id=10268">Click here</a> to register by Friday, Nov. 2.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHCF is an independent philanthropy headquartered in Oakland, Calif. dedicated to improving the health of Californians with special concern for the underserved. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q:</strong> <strong>In a <a href="http://newsatjama.jama.com/2012/05/16/jama-forum-tea-leaves-are-for-drinking-health-reform-after-the-supreme-court-ruling/">blog post</a> for JAMA Forum earlier this year, you argue that, regardless of the Supreme Court decision or the results of the upcoming presidential election, health reform is already happening, and will continue. Explain to our audience, briefly, what you mean by this?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: While the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections matters a great deal in some areas of healthcare policy, there are number of big trends in the delivery system that are a result of forces that are independent of these elections. In particular, cost pressures on every sector of healthcare will only intensify, no matter what the outcome of the election. Consolidation (of hospitals with each other, hospitals with physicians, and physician groups with each other) will continue. Novel arrangements between payers and provider systems aimed at reducing spend will persist; and consumers, spurred, in part, by growing out-of-pocket responsibilities, will become more and more price sensitive and more demanding of convenient customer service attributes which they have come to expect from other aspects of their lives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q:</strong> <strong>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act">ACA</a> gave rise to a lot of talk about cost containment. How big of a role do you suppose personalized medicine will play in driving down costs?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Too soon to tell. I can certainly imagine circumstances in which the ability to accurately predict an individual patient's response to an expensive medicine, say chemotherapy or biologic anti-inflammatory, may reduce expenditures on ineffective medicine, despite the expense of the initial test. But I can also see circumstances in which breathtakingly expensive personalized approaches provide only marginal increases of effectiveness with dramatic increases in costs. The good news (from the perspective of cost control) is that I think the approval and reimbursement environment of the future will be more on evidence and less on marketing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: We stand at a time when policy often lags the pace of scientific advance. Genetic sequencing and biomarkers are examples. How do we keep the two in unison? </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We can't. No matter how much we'd like to do so, the policy environment will never be as dynamic, nimble, or unpredictable as the breakthroughs in biomedical science. So, the question is not so much how we keep them in unison as how we can keep the policy environment from getting decades behind the science, as it is in many areas now. It will require new approaches to conditional approval, post-approval surveillance, collaborative funding of trials, etc. The most hopeful development is the progress of digitized medical records, computing power, and rapid learning systems which can compress the time needed for thoughtful collection, review and analysis of clinical data and, in some instances, replace traditional clinical trials.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: If you could change a single healthcare policy, at the state or federal level, what would it be and why?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Begin to develop a single national policy with regard to scope of practice, so that improvements and advances in the productivity and capacities of healthcare workers and patients themselves would not have to be battled out board by board, state by state.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are you most looking forward to in anticipation of CHI 2012?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The election will be over, some uncertainty will be reduced, and we can look forward to how to work together to strengthen the healthcare system while making it more affordable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-86566351552351050532012-10-10T15:58:00.001-07:002012-10-10T16:40:24.614-07:00Event Spotlight: USC Body Computing Conference 6.0<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bgu-_ULHlGY/UHXPiWZkgtI/AAAAAAAAANw/S3hXqDrqo2I/s1600/Body+Computing+Conference_Leslie+Saxon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" nea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bgu-_ULHlGY/UHXPiWZkgtI/AAAAAAAAANw/S3hXqDrqo2I/s400/Body+Computing+Conference_Leslie+Saxon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">USC's Dr. Leslie Saxon and <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ken Persen of Cameron Health</span> </span>showcase implantable defibrillation technology at the USC Body Computing Conference. Photo by USC Center for Body Computing.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To prosper as a competitive society, we have to become experts in managing data. For physicians, that data has to be clinically relevant.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Healthcare executives shared these insights and more Oct. 5 at the annual USC Body Computing Conference. CHI is a proud supporter of the annual conference, which gathers leaders from medicine, entertainment, telecommunications, kinesiology, and the regulatory world to shape the future of wireless medical solutions. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />For the sixth year, <a href="http://www.usccardiology.org/facultyadmin-saxon_leslie.html">Dr. Leslie Saxon</a>, chief of the division of cardiovascular medicine at the <a href="http://keck.usc.edu/">Keck School of Medicine</a> and founder of the <a href="http://www.uscbodycomputing.org/">USC Center for Body Computing</a>, led a discussion about wireless health and how it is changing healthcare monitoring and delivery. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://about.usc.edu/senior-administration/thomas-e-jackiewicz/">Thomas E. Jackiewicz</a>, senior vice president and chief executive officer for USC Health, said he expects that personalization will be the standard of care for cancer care in the next five years. Genomic medicine will outpace the federal <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/clinical-systems/healthcare-execs-must-prepare-for-big-da/%20http:/www.informationweek.com/healthcare/policy/meaningful-use-stage-2-rules-finalized/240006128">meaningful use</a> electronic health records incentives program, he said. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Agus">Dr. David Agus</a>, professor of medicine and engineering with USC and co-founder of personal genetics company <a href="http://www.navigenics.com/">Navigenics</a>, shared how far the industry has come in advancing medical treatments by reminding the audience how <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_test">early pregnancy tests</a> were administered – using rabbits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today, he said, we can sequence tumors and gather data that informs healthcare decision-making. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“We now have the technology to look at all the proteins in the body,” he said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some of the technologies showcased by conference presenters included brain monitoring devices to get inside the minds of elite athletes, technology platforms that allow for better integration of the hospital patient in team discussions and treatments, and devices for wirelessly monitoring the body’s vital signs in real-time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the more interesting concepts on display at the conference was Nigel, a Mini Cooper equipped with 230 sensors and an iPhone app to monitor driver habits and even create specific driving games or suggest activities for each of the car’s drivers. The idea could also apply to a driver’s health, said Saxon, by tracking the driver’s heart rate and increasing awareness about how the body responds to a song, for example. There is a “huge unmet need” for patients to be better connected with their own health, she said.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1n_PwqFOJ_8/UHYAPUnI33I/AAAAAAAAAOE/9eeJLwo3yIA/s1600/Body+Computing_Sam+Agutu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" nea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1n_PwqFOJ_8/UHYAPUnI33I/AAAAAAAAAOE/9eeJLwo3yIA/s1600/Body+Computing_Sam+Agutu.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Sam Agutu says Changamka has changed the healthcare paradigm for uninsured Kenyans. Photo by USC Center for Body Computing.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sam Agutu, managing director and CEO of Changamka Microhealth Ltd., captivated the audience with his healthcare “by the slice” approach to combining mobile money systems with prepaid health cards that allow uninsured Kenyans to pay only for the healthcare services they need, at pre-negotiated rates.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During a question-and-answer session with a senior level U.S. Food and Drug Administration representative, attendees asked about the various pathways for approval of these new technologies. Megan Moynahan, associate director for technology and <a href="http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofMedicalProductsandTobacco/CDRH/CDRHInnovation/InnovationPathway/default.htm">innovation</a> at the FDA, encouraged the audience to continue to push the boundaries of innovation so that the agency is forced to reckon with the latest cutting-edge ideas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The USC Center for Body Computing, which runs the conference, studies, incubates, and creates wireless health products with other USC schools and corporate partners. It specializes in creating innovative solutions for chronic disease management, sports monitoring, mHealth and gaming and entertainment. <a href="http://www.uscbodycomputing.org/">Click here</a> for more information.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-40438466819426702812012-09-25T15:32:00.000-07:002012-09-25T15:54:08.121-07:00Event Spotlight: O’Reilly Strata Rx Conference <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span>CHI proudly supports <a href="http://strataconf.com/rx2012?cmp=ba-strata-strx12-mp-chi-leader">Strata Rx</a>, a conference taking place Oct. 16-17 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square that will bring together experts and innovators in data science and healthcare, crossing traditional industry boundaries and uncovering insights on the emerging analytic approaches that can help solve some of healthcare's biggest challenges. Click <a href="http://strataconf.com/rx2012?cmp=ba-strata-strx12-mp-chi-leader">here</a> for more information on the conference and to receive the CHI member discount. In today's CHI Blog interview, event co-chairs Colin Hill and Julie Steele discuss their expectations for the conference, and some of the most pressing issues surrounding Big Data.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Colin Hill</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.gnshealthcare.com/leadership-team/">Colin Hill</a> is the CEO and co-founder of <a href="http://www.gnshealthcare.com/">GNS Healthcare</a>, a pioneer in Big Data analytics in personalized medicine and healthcare. He writes the Healthcare 2020 blog for <em>Forbes</em>. In 2004, Hill was named to <em>MIT Technology Review</em> 's TR100 list of the top innovators in the world under age 35. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sMPbK46gFiE/UGHgyjNr_1I/AAAAAAAAANQ/8_Ho0BbbcG4/s1600/JSteele2012-09-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="190" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sMPbK46gFiE/UGHgyjNr_1I/AAAAAAAAANQ/8_Ho0BbbcG4/s200/JSteele2012-09-12.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Julie Steele</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/julies">Julie Steele</a> is the content editor at O'Reilly Media and co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Visualization-Looking-through-Practice/dp/1449379869">Beautiful Visualization and Designing Data Visualizations</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Talk about how this conference was conceptualized, and what your intentions are for it this year and beyond? </strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Steele: This conference was borne out of a larger conference called Strata. In accordance with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O'Reilly">Tim O’Reilly’s</a> mission to work on things that matter, we looked at healthcare, specifically, as an area in which data science really has the potential to have significant impact for the better. This conference is designed to start some of the conversations between people who, traditionally, are in different silos of the healthcare industry. They may be computer scientists or they may be coming from a data science background and we want to get those conversations started so that collaboration and cooperation can happen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hill: Healthcare represents almost 20 percent of U.S. GDP. It’s the single largest category of the economy and is growing faster than anything else, while, at the same time, the U.S. is in the bottom half in terms of health outcomes. How can this be and what does this mean for technology and for data? </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Tell me who should attend the conference, and why. </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Steele: It’s a mash-up of people from different corners of not just the health universe but the data and technology universe. You have health insurance executives but you also have data scientists participating. We really expect a wide audience of stakeholders including patients and providers. This conference gives them the opportunity to collaborate on some of today’s most pressing Big Data issues. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Give me few examples of the kinds of healthcare organizations that have developed a strategic approach to Big Data. </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hill: In a way, healthcare is still in its infancy with Big Data because it is still a lot more about the research and the gathering of the data. We are beginning to see more interesting examples of data turned into decision making and interventions for patients. Stage 4 cancer patients, who would normally be left to die, now have a chance to find, outside of the standard of care, an intervention that works really well for them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think <a href="https://www.23andme.com/">23andMe</a> and <a href="http://www.patientslikeme.com/">PatientsLikeMe</a>, a community-based personalized medicine platform, are interesting examples of how organizations have been able to essentially reproduce research that took a very long time, find genetic associations for disease risk and use a crowd-sourcing-like approach. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aetna just announced <a href="http://www.aetna.com/news/newsReleases/2012/0827_Aetna_Innovation_Labs.html">Aetna Innovation Labs</a>, and, with that, a deal with GNS Healthcare around using data to manage metabolic syndrome to create a more personalized approach to disease management. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another company is <a href="http://www.foundationmedicine.com/">Foundation Medicine</a>. They are doing some really innovative work, when it comes to cancer drug matching, leveraging DNA sequencing in a way that is giving patients a chance to respond beyond just the standard of care. In fact, we are using it on my father’s prostate cancer right now, so we have some intimate and personal knowledge of how Big Data is actually changing the paradigm. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: It is clear we don’t want to pay for ineffective treatment. What potential does Big Data have for outcome-based payment models</strong>? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hill: That’s a great question. I think that’s absolutely critical. With all the hype and excitement about accountable care organizations and even value-based pricing that you're seeing with pharma, such as the Johnson & Johnson Velcade deal with the U.K. as of a few years ago, this really starts to force the use and the implementation of Big Data analytics to determine what’s actually going to work for which patient. I see Big Data at the core of answering these problems. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Is there ever such thing as too much data? </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Steele: I would frame it this way: The only data that is useful is the data that you can analyze and use to make better decisions. That’s the goal of all of this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hill: I would generally say no. We are always hungry for more data, but it absolutely has to be the right kind of data and we have to be able to find it and you can’t spend trillions of dollars storing it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: From the O’Reilly report <a href="http://oreillynet.com/oreilly/data/radarreports/how-data-science-is-transforming-health-care.csp">How Data Science is Transforming Health Care</a>: “Data becomes infinitely more powerful when you can mix data from different sources: many doctor’s offices, hospital admission records, address databases, and even the rapidly increasing stream of data coming from personal fitness devices.” How far away is this? </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hill: On the drug development and biomedical research side, combining of data types is already happening, whether it is attempts to discover predictive markers to stratify patients in trials or to determine in a patient care setting who is going to respond to a different drug.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are already seeing a lot of studies that are combining multiple data modalities where it is DNA sequencing, either single-nucleotide polymorphism or full-genome sequencing, combined with gene expression and metabolite profiling and clinical outcomes. It’s starting to become somewhat standard for certain diseases. In terms of healthcare data, when you’re talking about electronic medical records, claims data, clinical outcomes and such, you’re starting to see more combinations of companies, such as <a href="http://www.humedica.com/">Humedica</a> and <span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.explorys.com/">Explorys</a></span></span>, combining these data types. There’s also some focus on extracting data, closer to real-time, out of hospitals, combining that with longitudinal claims data that the hospitals process in order to get paid. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s going to take a bit longer for mobile health data to become real. We are still on the fringes of what really matters and what’s worth paying for. In my opinion, we are three to five years away from that becoming real. I think within five to 10 years it really becomes game changing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</span></i></span></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-7901580041850081992012-09-11T15:22:00.000-07:002012-09-11T15:22:34.739-07:00Speaker Spotlight: Tom Campbell, Ph.D., Dean of Chapman University School of Law<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ulX0Yhzm_1U/UE-0kiSaoaI/AAAAAAAAAMo/4_hJKPhKsxU/s1600/Campbell+Best+Portrait+5x7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ulX0Yhzm_1U/UE-0kiSaoaI/AAAAAAAAAMo/4_hJKPhKsxU/s320/Campbell+Best+Portrait+5x7.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom Campbell</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Campbell, Ph.D., a former U.S. congressman
and state senator who serves as dean of the </span><a href="http://www.chapman.edu/law/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Chapman University School of Law</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, will give
the keynote address for </span><a href="http://www.chi.org/basicpage.aspx?id=10268" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI
2012</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, the annual meeting of CHI. CHI 2012 focuses on the relationship
between biomedical innovation and public policy. The goal of the meeting is to
focus on the biomedical community’s work and needs, and how the industry can
sustain California’s leadership in medical innovation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Campbell served five terms in Congress, was also a California senator, and the director of finance for the state of California. He also served as the dean at the <a href="http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/">Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley</a> and a <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/">Stanford University</a> professor for almost two decades before that. He will provide CHI 2012 attendees with economic
predictions based on the election, share insights on the future of
healthcare legislation and address what is wrong with the political process. Campbell graduated with a doctorate
degree in economics from the <a href="http://www.uchicago.edu/index.shtml">University of Chicago</a>. He received his law degree
from <a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/">Harvard Law School</a>.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q:
In your opinion, how likely are we to see the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/index.html">Affordable Care Act </a>repealed?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A:
The outcome of the presidential, Senate, and House elections will determine the
future of our nation’s healthcare system. Bearing in mind that the president’s healthcare act passed under
reconciliation, by which a Senate filibuster was avoided, it is also true that
it can be repealed by a simple majority without the possibility of a
filibuster. Thus, it is safe to assume that if the Republicans gain the
presidency and have 50 senators, and hold the House majority, the president’s healthcare statute will be repealed.
What will replace it is not certain, of course; but it is unlikely that the
individual mandate will survive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: <o:p></o:p>What
features of the ACA do you anticipate will survive if Obama is
not re-elected?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Gov. Romney has recently
announced he’ll keep the obligation for carriers to take all insurance
applicants, even those with pre-existing conditions. Obviously, that will
necessitate higher premiums in all insurance contracts than before the law was
enacted, but no higher than what they are at present. As there will no longer
be a minimum set of coverages that have to be present in all contracts, we can
expect a wider choice of such options, offered by private insurers. Some, for
instance, will not include contraceptive care.</span></div>
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Do you anticipate Medicare will be turned to a voucher system?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A:
A capitated federal grant to the states for Medicaid, and to seniors directly
for Medicare, is likely, with increased numbers of eligibles, but reduced
compensated services. If the president is re-elected, then we might still see
some changes, as individual states take advantage of that part of the <i><a href="http://www.ncsl.org/documents/health/aca_medicaid_expansion_memo_1.pdf">National
Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius</a> </i>decision that allows
states to exempt themselves from federal compulsion.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q:
How are states currently dealing with this anticipated change?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A:
The governor of Maine is attempting the argument that his state
should be allowed to cover fewer people under Medicaid, with, admittedly, less
money than coming from the federal
government, rather than being compelled to cover with Maine’s own matching
money the broader categories required by the federal government. Also, the president announced several months ago that he was
going to propose a compromise with religious institutions; the details of that
compromise will have to be worked out if he is re-elected. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Q:
What will you draw on to give your keynote speech to CHI’s audience of
legislators, biomedical entrepreneurs and executives, investors and academic
researchers? </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A:
I will draw on my own experience in public life, having served as a member of Congress in what seemed a permanent Republican minority (1988-1992), then as
part of the first Republican majority in 40 years (1995-2000), and in a
legislative body with a very different set of procedures, the California
Senate, just as term limits were being applied (1993-1995). I’ll have some
iconoclastic recommendations regarding term limits, super-majority requirements
for votes, and selection of committee chairs. I’ll touch on the effect of money
in politics over the time the U.S. Supreme Court has redefined the relevant
rules, my efforts as part of the bipartisan team to adopt <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_the_United_States">McCain-Feingold</a>
(since struck down by the Supreme Court),
and the rise of both self-funded candidates and super PACs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It
is not too late to register for CHI 2012, taking place Nov. 8 at Gilead
Sciences Campus in Foster City, Calif. <a href="http://www.chi.org/basicpage.aspx?id=10268">Click here</a> to view the
full agenda and speaker line-up for CHI 2012. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and
innovation</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-72416963204498393262012-08-15T17:49:00.000-07:002012-08-16T08:27:18.750-07:00The Good, The Bad, and The UglyA recent experience I had with a major healthcare provider
here in San Diego reminded me of how very important it is, no matter the business,
to keep in mind the basic principles of customer service. The way your customer
feels about you, your product, or your brand, has a direct impact on your
customer, and, ultimately, your bottom line.<br />
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This week, due to a billing error, a collections agency
contacted me about an outstanding balance from an emergency room visit for my
2-year old son. I knew that this couldn’t be right, as I had never received a
bill in the first place. After a number of calls and terrible customer service
from a company it turns out was unaffiliated with the hospital, I took to
social media in desperation.<br />
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The healthcare provider responded within a short time span
-- as soon as the representative was able to investigate what had happened so
she’d be able to provide a decisive, complete answer that would assuage my
fears. That person contacted me -- several times, in fact -- to provide the
explanation and definitive resolution to the billing error and resulting
collections agency nightmare. A complete 180 from the deplorable experience with
the billing service. <br />
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That representative went above and beyond, investigating and
following up tirelessly, a problem it turned out was not hers to solve, all in
the name of ensuring I had a positive experience with the brand. Mission
accomplished!<br />
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It brought to mind some basic principles of customer service
that CHI strives to provide its members and that we should all keep in mind when
interacting with our various audiences:</div>
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<span style="text-indent: -4.5pt;"><b>1)</b></span><span style="font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><b> </b>
</span><b style="text-indent: -4.5pt;">To your customer, customer-facing employees ARE
the company.</b><span style="text-indent: -4.5pt;"></span><br />
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The impression a customer receives of your company is a
direct result of the interactions he or she has with your customer-facing
employees. These customer touches occur
anytime a person comes in contact with your company and uses that experience –
good, bad or ugly -- to form an impression of your organization. Making an investment in developing the skills
and knowledge of these employees is as much an investment in improving the customer
experience.</div>
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>2) </b></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>Employee happiness matters.</b></span></div>
There is a clear, strong link between an employee’s job satisfaction
and the customer service that an employee provides. It doesn’t matter if you are selling
healthcare services, medical devices, or shoes, for that matter. When an employee
feels valued and that his or her work matters, he or she is motivated to
provide excellent customer service. Conversely, if an employee isn’t satisfied with
his or her work, he or she won’t be motivated to provide a high level of
customer care.<br />
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<b>3) Don’t assume customers know they are valued – show them.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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The most important aspect of ensuring customers know they
are valued is to take care of his or her need in a timely, efficient, and thorough
manner. Every time an employee comes in contact with a customer, it is
essential that that person comes with a mind to earn the business and trust of customers
– something that cannot be taken for granted. Beyond fulfilling the stated
request of the customer, it is critical to show appreciation and respect. Show
that you care.<br />
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I hope that you feel CHI values you as a member and that
your needs are being met. If you have questions about CHI’s offerings, or have
input you’d like to share, please be sure to contact us!<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Nicole Beckstrand is CHI’s vice president of marketing and
communications. To reach her with your questions or input, email her at Beckstrand@chi.org. She is on <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolebeckstrand">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/HealthcarePR">Twitter</a>, as well.</i><o:p></o:p><br />
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<i>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and
innovation</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Nicole Beckstrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14428210901836891139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-17624797689834155282012-08-01T15:47:00.000-07:002012-08-01T17:01:42.141-07:00ResMed Hosts CHI Roundtable with Rep. Mary Bono Mack<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_B2GIs8AAmY/UBmr3mAB7wI/AAAAAAAAAA4/ROdRaxfG2ac/s1600/Photo+of+roundtable+participants.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_B2GIs8AAmY/UBmr3mAB7wI/AAAAAAAAAA4/ROdRaxfG2ac/s320/Photo+of+roundtable+participants.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">(CHI roundtable participants pictured from left): Heather Turner (Orexigen), Terry McCune (K-Tube), Christen Chavez (ReMed), Mick Farrell (ResMed), Rep. Mary Bono Mack, David Gollaher (CHI) and Pedro Lichtinger (Optimer). </span>
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<a href="http://www.resmed.com/us/assets/html/executive_team/executive-officers.html?nc=aboutus" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Michael “Mick”Farrell</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, President of the Americas for CHI member </span><a href="http://www.resmed.com/" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">ResMed</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, recently hosted a CHI roundtable with <a href="http://bono.house.gov/">Rep.Mary Bono Mack</a> (R-Palm Springs) led by CHI President & CEO </span><a href="http://www.chi.org/about/leadership/gollaher.aspx" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">David Gollaher</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> at the company’s
headquarters in San Diego. CHI members Heather Turner (</span><a href="http://www.orexigen.com/" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Orexigen</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">), Pedro
Lichtinger (</span><a href="http://www.optimerpharma.com/" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Optimer Pharmaceuticals</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">), Terry McCune (</span><a href="http://www.k-tube.com/" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">K-Tube</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">) and Christen Chavez (ResMed) participated. Bono Mack serves on the </span><a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">House Energy & Commerce Committee</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> which has
jurisdiction over FDA, so the regulatory environment for medical innovation was
a key topic of discussion. Participants gave examples of companies moving
abroad, pushing jobs and revenues offshore because of inconsistency and
unpredictability at the Agency. Investors cite the FDA regulatory environment
as the greatest threat to the industry’s growth. According to the July 20
</span><a href="http://www.pwcmoneytree.com/" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">MoneyTree Report</a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> by PwC and the National Venture Capital
Association, life sciences investing declined for
the fourth consecutive quarter, most notably in the biotechnology sector
representing the lowest quarterly total for the industry since the first quarter
of 2003. Bono Mack stated her commitment to working with CHI and its
members to improve the regulatory environment for new technologies and
therapies to get to market. CHI members also expressed concerns about
government coverage and payment policies that do not reward innovation and
limit patient access to new therapies. CHI has worked with legislators to
prevent changes to coverage and reimbursement policies, such as Medicare Parts
B and D, that would discourage future investment and innovation. CHI has
addressed concerns with IPAB and continually monitors implementation of
government-sponsored comparative effectiveness research. In closing, Bono
Mack invited those who participated and any CHI member to come to her with
concerns and to offer proposed solutions that she could consider. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and
innovation</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368425097864366198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-82267741965817619572012-07-27T13:26:00.001-07:002012-07-27T13:26:35.482-07:00CHI Event Spotlight: CHI Tackles Diabetes in U.S. Capitol<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On July 24, CHI partnered with the <a href="http://www.house.gov/degette/diabetes/">Congressional Diabetes Caucus</a> to bring together a panel of experts to discuss the key issues surrounding the diabetes epidemic. With diabetes affecting 25.8 million people, and ethnic minorities sharing a disproportionate burden, it is important now more than ever that we fund research and education efforts to understand and combat this disease for which there is no cure. During the event, <a href="http://becerra.house.gov/">Rep. Xavier Becerra</a> (D-Los Angeles) acknowledged the prevalence of diabetes in his home district and reiterated the importance of combating the disease. In Los Angeles alone, the consequences of the diabetes pandemic are especially evident, where diabetes has been the 6th leading cause of death since 1997. Diabetes costs Los Angeles County an estimated $6.4 billion a year, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Panelists at the briefing included physicians, researchers, innovators and patient advocates. Speakers highlighted differences between diabetes types 1 and 2 and their variations in diagnosis, prevention and known causes. Type 1 diabetes, previously known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease in which the body does not produce the hormone insulin. There is no known way to prevent type 1 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, previously known as adult-onset diabetes, is a metabolic disease in which the body does not make enough insulin or use it effectively. Type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed by maintaining a healthy weight and exercising regularly.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.cedars-sinai.edu/About-Us/News/News-Releases-2011-/Richard-Bergman-PhD-Appointed-Director-of-Cedars-Sinais-Diabetes-and-Obesity-Research-Institute.aspx">Dr. Richard Bergman of Cedars Sinai</a> noted that there are two categories of treatment: medical and behavioral. Type 2 diabetes is much less understood and, therefore, treatments are less developed. Researchers have discovered, however, that along with obesity, environmental factors including toxin exposure increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Bergman also stressed the importance of NIH funding for diabetes research. Specifically, he noted the lack of incentives for intelligent, young researchers to enter the field where funding lags. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Panelists from the <a href="http://www.cityofhope.org/Pages/default.aspx">City of Hope</a> and <a href="http://www.medtronic.com/?utm_expid=52263849-7&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26frm%3D1%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CHwQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.medtronic.com%252F%26ei%3DbfcSUO2DD4GG8QToxIDwDQ%26usg%3DAFQjCNFJA7dkfICPcRuNmIGWIp2vPNouKA%26sig2%3DyFG7Te0nPwGNBrhKZNyDVg">Medtronic</a> spoke about their joint effort to create an automated insulin pump that assesses a patient’s blood-sugar levels systematically and releases or stops insulin injections accordingly. Essentially, this device would function as an artificial pancreas. For patients, this could dramatically improve the lives of those with type 1 diabetes by reducing their reliance on finger pricks and self-administered insulin injections.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr. Francine R. Kaufman, chief medical officer of Medtronic Diabetes, and author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Diabesity-Obesity-Diabetes-Epidemic-Threatens-America-And/dp/0553803840">Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America And What We Must Do to Stop It</a>," presented Medtronic’s project, The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young, or TEDDY. The project aims to identify the triggers that cause children to get type 1 diabetes and to establish a central repository of data and biological samples. Highlights of Medtronic’s TEDDY diabetes program include:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Discovery of new genes, potential targets for prevention and treatment</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reprogramming adult pancreas cells to insulin-producing beta cells in mice</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Standardizing improved patient care for both type 1 and 2 diabetes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Developing new glucose monitoring tools </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Developing and testing of novel drugs for treating diabetes complications </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Islet transplantation advances </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Promising therapies targeting immune cells to prevent and reverse type 1 diabetes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Testing of novel type 1 diabetes prevention strategies </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Michelle Mundt, a <a href="http://www.jdrf.org/">Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation</a> volunteer who has family members with type 1 diabetes, illustrated her daily life and the effects of diabetes. About 700,000 Americans suffer from type 1 diabetes, the most common chronic metabolic disorder to affect children. Mundt shared dramatic lifestyle changes post-diagnosis including the daily vigilance required to manage the disease. She and her husband have taught their children to check their insulin levels, count carbohydrates and account for exercise and sleep. Preparation, she said, is key to daily activities. She said her family always has juice boxes and snacks on hand in case blood-sugar levels drop too low.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI extends a warm thank you to the panelists for their participation as well as congressional staffers, and individuals from organizations like FasterCures, the American Diabetes Association, JDRF, the National Council on Aging, the American Podiatric Medical Association, and the California Hospital Association for attending. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For more information on what CHI member companies and other organizations are doing in the diabetes arena, </span><a href="http://www.chi.org/uploadedFiles/Industry_at_a_glance/CHI%20Diabetes%20Brochure%20Single%20Pages.pdf"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">click here</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation </span></em><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-77379310236488746202012-07-10T09:08:00.000-07:002012-07-10T09:08:30.262-07:00Speaker Spotlight: Dana Goldman, Ph.D., Director of the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, UCLA Adjunct Professor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O2Jz02u1a-E/T_xQ3jMfq7I/AAAAAAAAALQ/A-CQ2VjlEEM/s1600/Dana+Goldman+3.8MB.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img $ca="true" border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O2Jz02u1a-E/T_xQ3jMfq7I/AAAAAAAAALQ/A-CQ2VjlEEM/s320/Dana+Goldman+3.8MB.JPG" width="251" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Goldman is a nationally-recognized health economist influential in both academic and policy circles. He is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters, including articles in some of the most prestigious medical, economic, health policy, and statistics journals. He is a health policy advisor to the Congressional Budget Office, and is a frequent speaker on healthcare issues. He joins us July 12 at UCLA for “<a href="http://www.chi.org/basicpage.aspx?id=10266">California: Uniting Science and Policy to Advance Cancer Care</a>.” It’s not too late to register for the event – contact Marisa Reinoso at <a href="mailto:reinoso@chi.org">reinoso@chi.org</a>. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br /></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What policies have greatly impacted cancer care in your opinion?<br /><br /><br /></strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I think what people don’t realize is just how important reimbursement and other health policies are in terms of changing the way treatment gets delivered. For example, if you look at the rules for Medicare reimbursement, most of the reimbursement has been generous, historically, for infused therapies. And the result is that we have many infused therapies for cancer. And the question is whether that generous reimbursement is going to continue. Even more important is the relationship between reimbursement and future innovation.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The idea is that we have the luxury in the United States because we have reimbursed, historically, at generous levels that, for our conditions, we’ve actually made progress. We’re actually winning the war on cancer and we’re doing it through treatment, as well as diagnosis. The issue is whether that type of progress will continue.<br /><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: You talk a lot about the importance, both from a health standpoint and an economic one, of prevention and preventive care. How much of this will rely on medical diagnostics and advanced technologies and how much is it reliant on an individual to change his or her behavior?<br /><br /></span></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: What we found is the change in behavior is notoriously difficult. If you roll the clock back 50 years and you think about hypertension, it has always been a serious health dilemma in this country. But we know there are behavioral modifications that will help people – they can change their diet, reduce their salt intake and exercise more. But what we found is that very few people comply. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Actually, the introduction of drugs, mainly beta blockers, diuretics, calcium channel blockers, and a whole host of therapies, have actually resulted in incredible improvements in cardiovascular-related mortality in the United States. These classes of drugs have been a huge success and they have been able to substitute where previously we had to rely on behavioral change. There is an important lesson here. Yes, we’d like to modify behavior. And, yes, behavior change has value. But it is also important that we continue to innovate to find ways where biomedicine can fill those gaps.<br /><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: How do you see California leading the way in terms of healthcare following the Affordable Care Act, with so many uninsured?<br /><br /></span></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: As in so many areas, California is one of those states that defines the way other states will react to policies. As you know, we face a severe fiscal and economic crisis in the state. It is easy to say one of the reasons for this is healthcare, so we should be working hard to reduce reimbursement in many areas. But it is important to realize that California is also the engine for biotechnology and biomedicine is one of the engines of growth in this state.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">California has a reasonably competitive health insurance market. In the private sector, they have been initiating reforms that will drive reimbursement down where it needs to be driven down. And it will drive up where we need to reward value. We should be careful to make sure that we encourage those markets to work as efficiently as possible. And that may mean even raising reimbursement in some areas.<br /><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What’s been consuming the majority of your time these days?<br /><br /></span></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I have been spending my time trying to think about other ways that we can 1) reimburse high-value therapy and 2) come up with better models to try and understand the short- and long-implications of disease. For example, if you think about a country’s progress generally, and we tend to look at gross national product or gross domestic product, but we don’t take into account the health benefits that countries might get from various interventions. And that is an important part of progress. We need to find ways to promote not only longevity but also better quality of life when people get older. <br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s been a lot of focus on the ACA and its short-term implications. We are the only center that I know of that is actually thinking about how will this affect innovation in the long-term.<br /><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What are you most looking forward to hearing about at “California: Uniting Science and Policy to Advance Cancer Care” on Thursday?<br /><br /></span></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I’m looking forward to “The State of Cancer Research in the Golden State” and “Improving Access to Advanced Treatment” panels.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think it is important we promote access to therapy and we do not end up with a world where we have large disparities in access because only the wealthy can get access to these therapies. At the same time, we have to make sure we can reimburse them appropriately. <br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Really, access to care is going to be a key issue going forward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-33499550140830926942012-06-29T13:51:00.000-07:002012-06-29T14:13:04.759-07:00Speaker Spotlight: Roy D. Baynes, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Oncology Therapeutics, Gilead Sciences<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8weduMxmpkc/T-4TvTQuucI/AAAAAAAAALE/HnYsIlF6Taw/s1600/Picture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8weduMxmpkc/T-4TvTQuucI/AAAAAAAAALE/HnYsIlF6Taw/s200/Picture1.jpg" vca="true" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Roy Baynes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr. Baynes serves as senior vice president of oncology therapeutics at Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City, Calif. There, he oversees a pipeline of products focused on treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia, indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, colorectal cancer, myelofibrosis and pancreatic cancer. “We stand at an incredibly exciting time in cancer research and drug discovery,” said Baynes, who came to Gilead from Amgen, where he served as vice president of global development and as therapeutic area head of hematology oncology. Baynes received his medical degree and doctorate from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Cancer is an incredibly challenging field, full of discovery and of setbacks. What first drew you to this kind of research? </span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Firstly, it was about the science. The molecular and biological understanding of disease has always been an integral part of cancer research. In part, this relates to accessibility to tissue from biopsies or, in the case of hematological malignancies, from blood. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second driver was really an intensely personal one. Most people are touched directly or indirectly by this dreadful disease, cancer. I have had too many close friends and family members who have either done battle with cancer or are doing battle with cancer. I’ve always taken the view that cancer patients just simply cannot wait, which has given a great sense of urgency to cancer research.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, thirdly, there was the opportunity. Most people who come through academic programs are reasonably multi-talented and can go in any direction. So, oftentimes, it’s a combination of scientific interest, personal motivation and the opportunity. At the time I was ready to start my clinical and research career, the biggest opportunity was in the oncology and hematology arena. I fell in love immediately with the discipline and have been there ever since.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Knowledge about cancer genotypes has led to greater, more targeted treatment for women with breast cancer, especially, and other cancers. What is on the horizon for molecularly targeted therapies? </span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We stand at an incredibly exciting time in cancer research and drug discovery. The biological underpinnings and basis of disease are becoming more clearly understood. Our ability to segment and select patients who will ultimately benefit from specific approaches is being enhanced on a daily basis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The unmet medical need remains huge. You pull together the rapidly advancing science and biology and the unmet needs related to this grievous condition, cancer, and it’s a very compelling area to be working in. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gilead has a tremendous history of medicinal chemistry and antiviral drug development. About two years ago, Gilead made a decision to get back into the cancer arena, driven largely by the notion that the molecular understanding had reached a level of sophistication where indeed it lent itself to meaningful drug development.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The company is working quickly to advance the cancer arena and, more specifically, the targeted therapeutics arena. And a lot of this has been built on licensing and acquiring assets. It’s been a thoughtful, deliberate process. </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Are there policies at the local, state or federal level that have a significant impact on your work?</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: When it comes to drug discovery, it’s important to begin with the end in mind. I think our goal is to come forward with innovative medicines that can address serious unmet medical needs and transform the lives of patients. So, that’s our guiding principle and, I think, if one stays true to that mission, the policy considerations have to fall in line. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What are you most looking forward to in terms of our July program, “California: Uniting Science & Policy to Advance Cancer Care?”</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: CHI has developed an energizing program with a diverse range of speakers and very topical discussion points relating to oncology. I’m particularly looking forward to the session I’ll be moderating, “The State of Cancer Research in the Golden State,” because I think the Golden State has a tremendous amount to be proud of. As the birthplace of biotechnology, and as home to several prominent academic research centers and a strong biotech industry presence, California has played a key role in the personalized medicine innovation we are seeing in oncology today. </span><br />
<br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-24856528829635904082012-06-13T14:47:00.000-07:002012-06-13T14:47:48.941-07:00Executive Spotlight: Bernd J. Larsen, President & CEO, CODAN USA<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6I3iZosvF48/T9kF29EuXMI/AAAAAAAAAAk/JtzpRh6pQLw/s1600/Bernd+Larsen+June2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6I3iZosvF48/T9kF29EuXMI/AAAAAAAAAAk/JtzpRh6pQLw/s200/Bernd+Larsen+June2012.jpg" width="132" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernd J. Larsen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CODAN in the U.S. is a part of the privately-held,
European-based CODAN group of companies, which for more than 50 years has been
a market leader in the area of I.V. drug delivery systems. CODAN’s core
business is the manufacturing and sales of I.V. sets and accessories for both
infusion and transfusion therapy. Larsen has been president of CODAN
in the U.S. for 11 years and previously held senior-level executive positions
with Maersk Medical in Denmark, Germany and the U.S.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Share with us a brief history of the company and describe your
products. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: CODAN was founded in 1959 in Denmark. Our first U.S.
facility opened in 1971 in Burbank, Calif., primarily focused on product
assembly and sales. In 1997, the company was moved to new more spacious
facilities in Santa Ana, Calif. where we are today. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I should perhaps mention that, as of a few years ago, we also
operate an assembly facility across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. We manufacture both private-label OEM
products built to customer specifications as well as CODAN branded products,
including </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CODAN for Kids</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> for the neonatal/pediatric arena, specialty
anesthesia sets and blood sets sold under the name </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Walrus by CODAN</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CODAN
Rx</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> for the hospital pharmacy</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, CODAN CYTO</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> for the delivery of
cytotoxic drugs, and a catalogue of other miscellaneous I.V. products.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What are your biggest goals for the year ahead and beyond? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Our management team recently completed our “Road to 2017”
strategy plan and this plan outlines how we will transition the company
emphasis to CODAN labeled products while continuing to offer private label
products. The CODAN labeled products will be spearheaded by our anesthesia
product line where we have established an excellent reputation with
anesthesiologists and where we can leverage our leadership position in raw
material, manufacturing, inspection and sterilization processes, and in
packaging and distribution networks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: If you could change a public policy at the federal or state level,
what would it be?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: There is some
uncertainty at FDA around the 510(k) regulatory process and an opportunity to
improve the predictability of these processes to speed the delivery of I.V.
drug delivery systems to patients. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Working with good
people inside and outside of the company is very rewarding to me. It has also
been rewarding to see our company’s impressive growth in new products and
revenue over the past four years, despite a tough economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q. Describe your leadership style.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. I try to follow an old management philosophy: “He who
informs inspires! He who ignores injures!” I strive to give our employees as
much information as possible about the company and where we are going vis-à-vis
our targets so they feel trusted and an important part of what we are working
to achieve as a company. I also believe in letting people do their jobs and not
micromanaging them. I believe that most people will rise to the challenge if
they feel empowered to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q. What are you doing when you are not at work?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. My main hobbies are reading for pleasure and writing, and
I hope to publish a book about my experiences in America in the near future. I
used to be an avid hiker, but while I still enjoy it, I do not get out there as
much as I used to. I also enjoy spending time with my family, my wife Marianne,
my five children and 11 grandchildren.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OAMJXTn14Ks/T9kF-z4WXMI/AAAAAAAAAAs/Jlrzfzwrbxc/s1600/CODAN+USA+Exterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OAMJXTn14Ks/T9kF-z4WXMI/AAAAAAAAAAs/Jlrzfzwrbxc/s320/CODAN+USA+Exterior.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CODAN USA headquarters in Santa Ana, Calif.</td></tr>
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368425097864366198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-33432829917530534652012-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:002012-06-12T10:05:07.008-07:00Community Spotlight: CHI Supports Volunteer Reading Program <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c3Lr1Dtap70/T9d09mkTksI/AAAAAAAAAK4/V07CNvFvqoY/s1600/RR+kiddos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" fba="true" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c3Lr1Dtap70/T9d09mkTksI/AAAAAAAAAK4/V07CNvFvqoY/s400/RR+kiddos.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI Communications Specialist Heather Chambers with OB Elementary students.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While the end of the school year is typically a time for celebration, for me, it was bittersweet to say goodbye to a group of students in Ocean Beach Elementary School’s classroom 7. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For the second year in a row, I had the opportunity to share my love of reading with a classroom full of first and second graders. I am grateful that CHI values its employees and their</span> personal pursuits and has allowed me the time to read to the children each Wednesday morning.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://www.rollingreaders.org/">Rolling Readers</a> program is designed to reach underprivileged children and encourage lifelong learning that starts with reading at the grade-school level. It pairs adult volunteers with schools that offer the free lunch program.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Research shows that children who aren't reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times less likely to finish high school on time. If they are poor and not reading proficiently, they are 13 times less likely to finish high school. And for children who live in areas of concentrated poverty, the prospects are even grimmer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In order to encourage leaning in this fun, “free time,” we explored the world of fantasy, adventure, mystery and even foreign language. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The highlight of the Rolling Readers program is its annual book drive. This year, each student took home a copy of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/City-Dog-Country-Frog-Willems/dp/1423103009">City Dog, Country Frog</a>” by author Mo Willems. It is satisfying to know that they will have a book to call their own, to share with friends and encourage reading among family members.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As these students move forward with their education, hopefully they will find comfort and joy in reading. I certainly found joy in reading to them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-52595461066982217372012-06-08T14:59:00.001-07:002012-06-11T11:53:59.007-07:00Executive Spotlight: Ralf Otto, Ph.D., VP Operations and Fremont Site Head, Boehringer Ingelheim<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ralf Otto</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Otto joined Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) in 2001. At BI, he has served as executive director of a large-scale cell culture manufacturing facility and also played a key role in a technology and capacity upgrade project of the facility. Beginning in 2010, Otto worked in BI’s Pharma production network as head of network competitiveness, holding global responsibility for improving sites’ competitiveness with a focus on Brazil and China. In <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2011, he joined BI Fremont as site head. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Otto previously worked for Henkel in Duesseldorf, Germany, where he spent three years in various biotechnology-related positions. Since 2002, he has routinely taught commercial biotechnology courses at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Stuttgart, and the University of Karlsruhe (both in Germany). He graduated with a degree in biotechnology and carried out his doctorate at the German Cancer Research Center/University of Stuttgart. His scientific writing has appeared in numerous international journals and books, and he holds more than 20 patents.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Share a brief history of BI and its Fremont facility, acquired from Amgen.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) was founded in 1885 by Albert Boehringer in Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany. More than 125 years later, the company is still family-owned and is one of the world’s 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. The Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation currently has more than 42,000 employees and 145 affiliated companies spread across the globe. BI has six facilities in the United States: our U.S. headquarters and R&D including Biologics Skill Center in Ridgefield, Conn.; our generic company, Roxane, in Columbus, Ohio; a manufacturing facility in Bedford, Ohio; our animal medical facilities in St. Joseph, Mo. and Fort Dodge, Iowa; our chemical facility in Petersburg, Va.; and lastly, our biotechnology facility in Fremont, Calif.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BI acquired the Fremont facility in March 2011 from Amgen, making it BI’s first biotechnology facility in the U.S. This facility encompasses more than 300,000 square feet of state-of-the-art development and manufacturing space. BI’s vision was to transform the site into a development, clinical manufacturing, and innovation site that can develop and produce multiple drugs for different contract manufacturing clients and our own biologics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: How many employees does the site have today? What kind of manufacturing capabilities?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: BI Fremont has approximately 300 employees. The site is capable of developing and manufacturing non-clinical, clinical, and commercial biopharmaceuticals and includes a non-GMP pilot plant and process development labs. The facility boasts two trains that enable us to manufacture multiple products simultaneously, up to the 12,000-liter level from cell harvesting, cultivation, and purification, ending with fill and finish. Additionally, we are currently extending our services into disposable technology that would complement the usual bioreactors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Tell me some of your biggest goals for the year.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I want us to make BI Fremont the first choice for clients on the West Coast, especially in the Bay Area. While Fremont is BI's first biotech facility in the U.S., BI has been a successful contract manufacturer in other countries for decades. We are excited to expand our innovation to California. I want us to continue building a high-performing team in Fremont, ensuring that every employee can deliver his or her best. As for productivity, we have set the goal to beat our benchmark and to cultivate a culture of innovation that drives superior solutions for BI patients and clients. Our culture is based on values that make this a great place to work, and together we are focused on ways to build a sustainable future for the site.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are the biggest challenges to achieving these goals?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: With the acquisition we inherited systems that need to be significantly transformed to support our multi-faceted business direction. We also need to ensure that employees have the right skills through training and by hiring new talent so that we can fulfill our objectives. Change is always a challenge, but we already have accomplished great achievements at high speed—for example, a four-fold increase in productivity, multi-product operations, and new product introduction—so we are sure that we can deliver even more on our ambitious targets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: If you could change a public policy at the state or federal level, what would it be?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: California is one of only three states where manufacturers are required to pay both a sales and property tax for equipment. We support current state legislation that would credit manufacturers for sales tax purchases. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Some may be surprised to hear that BI is a family-owned company. Describe your corporate culture and how it may differ from others.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We provide value to the customer by being innovative and entrepreneurial in everything we do. We call this approach “value through innovation.” Value through innovation means coming up with new and better ways of improving health, which reflect and anticipate the needs of our customers and patients. We also emphasize both personal and professional development and encourage employees to never stop learning. Based on our values, we can guarantee sustainability as BI’s 125 years record shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: In a short period of time, I have seen great results from our staff in Fremont. Fremont has a diverse workforce that is extremely flexible, responsive, and experienced, which has achieved great success in just our first year. I am excited about our prospects for this year and beyond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are you doing when you are not at work?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I spend time over the weekends traveling around California with my family. I am very much impressed by the country, people, and culture. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-53168932671616831442012-05-18T14:14:00.001-07:002012-06-12T10:06:10.019-07:00Executive Spotlight: Dr. Alain Baron, President and CEO, Elcelyx Therapeutics<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bzc1357W25M/T7a6KSWwehI/AAAAAAAAAKg/yGsi87m25Jo/s1600/Alain+Baron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bzc1357W25M/T7a6KSWwehI/AAAAAAAAAKg/yGsi87m25Jo/s320/Alain+Baron.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr. Alain Baron</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://elcelyx.com/index.html">Elcelyx Therapeutics</a> is a privately held biotechnology company focused on creating a wide range of products based on the science of nutrient sensing. The company’s novel product candidates are directed at the prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes. Since joining Elcelyx Therapeutics in 2010, Baron has been focused on advancing the company’s new products to treat metabolic diseases based on a completely novel platform, called “gut sensory modulation.” He brought his expertise as an entrepreneur-in-residence and a member of the life science team at <a href="http://www.morgenthaler.com/">Morgenthaler Ventures</a>, a position he has held since 2008, along with prior experience as senior vice president of research at <a href="http://www.amylin.com/">Amylin Pharmaceuticals</a>. He has held faculty positions at <a href="http://medicine.iu.edu/">Indiana University School of Medicine</a> in Indianapolis and <a href="http://www.ucsd.edu/">UCSD</a>, along with the <a href="http://www.sandiego.va.gov/">Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Diego</a>. Baron graduated from <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/">McGill University</a> in Canada with a bachelor’s degree in biology and a medical degree from the <a href="http://www.georgiahealth.edu/">Medical College of Georgia Augusta</a>. He completed postdoctoral studies at UCSD.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Share with us a brief history of the company. How did your leaders come together? How was the company originally funded?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Elcelyx was founded by two former Amylin Pharmaceuticals employees, myself and <a href="http://elcelyx.com/martin-brown.html">Martin Brown</a>. Elcelyx was first funded by Morgenthaler Ventures in a Series A round in March of 2010. Currently, the company is funded by <a href="http://www.morgenthaler.com/">Morgenthaler Ventures</a>, <a href="http://www.kpcb.com/portfolio/portfolio.php?therapeutics">Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers</a>, and <a href="http://www.technologypartners.com/lifescience.html">Technology Partners</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Tell me some of your biggest goals for the year.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Elcelyx is developing new products to treat <a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/metabolicdisorders.html">metabolic diseases</a> based on a completely novel platform, named “gut sensory modulation,” that shows promise to produce very safe and effective oral therapies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are the biggest challenges to achieving these goals? </strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Recognizing the importance of safety of therapeutics for metabolic diseases in the current regulatory environment, Elcelyx has focused its efforts at maximizing safety in its development of novel therapeutics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: If you could change a public policy at the state or federal level, what would it be?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Given the time and risks involved with drug development, there is a great need to improve dialogue with the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/">U.S. Food and Drug Administration</a> to make their decisions more predictable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The collaborative environment created and nurtured at Elcelyx makes for a very productive and enjoyable workplace. Knowing we are working to address large, unmet medical needs is all the more rewarding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are you doing when you’re not at work?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I love to spend time with my family and friends, read, play tennis and travel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-23682279335527385652012-05-15T16:49:00.000-07:002012-05-15T16:50:50.411-07:00Event Spotlight: CHI Hosts Annual Reception and Hill Meetings in Washington, D.C. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-57qspjnv06M/T7Lg_zHtXqI/AAAAAAAAAKU/s61NVu-eUh8/s1600/Upton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" kba="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-57qspjnv06M/T7Lg_zHtXqI/AAAAAAAAAKU/s61NVu-eUh8/s400/Upton.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton accepts CHI Chairman's Award from CHI President and CEO David Gollaher, Ph.D., and CHI Chairman and Gen-Probe CEO Carl Hull.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CHI honored House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) with the CHI Chairman’s Award during a reception May 9 in Washington, D.C., at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Guests at the reception and private dinner enjoyed an evening with the California delegation and leaders driving biomedical innovation at the event, called “Invest. Innovate. Compete.” During the dinner, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-San Diego) expressed his support for the biomedical community and stressed the importance of bringing life-saving cures to patients in need.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Prior to the event, CHI <span style="color: black;">board</span> members participated in meetings on Capitol Hill to discuss the impact of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and user fee reauthorizations, the importance of National Institutes of Health funding, and the significance of the California life sciences community to continued innovation and job creation. Meetings were held with Energy and Commerce Committee members including: Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Carlsbad), Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Atherton), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI). Other member meetings included Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and key legislative staff at the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Over the course of the day, one message was repeatedly conveyed: the important and successful role of CHI in communicating and contextualizing the importance of consistent, predictable and efficient FDA regulatory processes to continued biomedical research, investment and innovation in our state.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Also that day, CHI released a report on FDA with respect to the agency’s approval of drugs and biologics, building on our earlier study, <a href="http://chi.org/uploadedFiles/Industry_at_a_glance/FINAL%20FDA%20report.pdf">Competitiveness and Regulation: The FDA and the Future of America’s Biomedical Industry</a> (2011). The report, </span><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://chi.org/uploadedfiles/CHI_FDA_Report-embargoed.pdf">Managing Priorities: Therapeutic Area Variation in FDA Drug Regulation</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">, presents new data that illustrate important differences in FDA performance from one therapeutic area to another and examines misalignment between regulation and public health needs. It comes as Congress considers critical legislation that would renew and expand fees paid by drug and medical-device companies to help fund the FDA. Current legislation allowing the FDA to collect fees from drug and medical-device companies expires Sept. 30.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><i>Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News</i> highlighted the report’s findings in a <a href="http://www.genengnews.com/keywordsandtools/print/4/27142/">recent article</a> and <em>The Burrill Report</em> featured a <a href="http://www.burrillreport.com/article-keeping_score_at_the_fda_.html">one-on-one interview</a> between CHI CEO David L. Gollaher, Ph.D., and Burrill’s Daniel Levine.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br /></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-81840689812070053952012-05-03T09:01:00.000-07:002012-05-03T09:01:44.579-07:00Executive Spotlight: Kleanthis Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., CEO of Regulus Therapeutics Inc. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kleanthis Xanthopoulos</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Xanthopoulos understands the biotech business from the inside out. Xanthopoulos is president and CEO of Regulus Therapeutics Inc., which was formed in late 2007 by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Mass. and Carlsbad, Calif.-based Isis Pharmaceuticals. It is testing drugs that use microRNA technology, a gene “silencing” technique used for treating various diseases. Regulus has created leading strategic alliances with GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis to develop microRNA therapeutics. Regulus moved to La Jolla in mid-2010 in the proximity of leading academic institutions including The Scripps Research Institute, Salk Institute, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and UC San Diego. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before joining Regulus, Xanthopoulos spent time as managing director of Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, where he analyzed the best deals in the biomedical space. Prior to that, he co-founded and served as president and CEO of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and served as a member of the board until its acquisition by Roche in late 2011. And before Aurora Biosciences became Vertex Pharmaceuticals, he was vice president from 1997 to 2000. Xanthopoulos participated in The Human Genome Project as a section head of the National Human Genome Research Institute from 1995 to 1997. Previously, he was an associate professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden after completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at The Rockefeller University, New York. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An Onassis Foundation scholar, Xanthopoulos received his bachelor’s degree in biology with honors from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and received both his master’s and doctorate degrees in microbiology from the University of Stockholm, Sweden. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: You went from being head of a biotech to the investor world, and, now, as head of this company spun out of Alnylam and Isis. What has the transition back been like?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Entering biotech life again was a perfectly natural transition, like coming home. I fell in love with the groundbreaking biology and was enamored with the opportunity to translate this big idea into innovative medicines. I like to say that my time spent at the VC firm was as a biotech sabbatical — taking time off from my true passion of building companies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What led Regulus to locate on the Torrey Pines Mesa as opposed to, say, Carlsbad where Isis is located?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: It made terrific sense to be incubated within Isis. There is a lot of educational knowledge that we extracted from Isis, and the best way to do this is by osmosis. So, being there was very important for the first years of Regulus’ life. But, ultimately, we wanted our own culture and identity, and we felt that, based on some local collaborations and activities that we have, it would be much better served if we were in the Torrey Mesa as opposed to North County.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Regulus has made some major industry collaborations, big names such as GlaxoSmithKline. What can we expect from the Regulus partnerships in the years to come?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Regulus has a dominant locked-in position in the world of microRNAs, which are remarkable and elaborate. They manage control of transcription and post-transcription mechanisms by dictating the half-life of messenger RNA. More than 700 microRNAs have so far been identified in humans, so that means 700 targets. And that, for a small company like us, means collaboration. We have 40 active academic institutions that work with Regulus and many of them are in very close proximity, including one with UCSD. It is part of the strategy and one that we pursued and have benefitted from exceptionally well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Within six months of formally announcing Regulus, we had the partnership with Glaxo. It is encompassed around four microRNAs. Only one had been identified before the collaboration. So what you should expect is steady stream of news over the period of the collaboration. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Talk about the environment for startups in California. What would be your advice to start-ups looking to grow within the state, such as Regulus has?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The good news is that any good, solid idea that is addressing significant needs in the pharmaceutical drug development stage is going to get funded. The bad news is the other ideas, or maybe product ideas alone, have a much more difficult time. Re-licensed or repurposed drug stories, I think, are going to have a harder time moving forward. In the early part of this year, we have seen a resurgence of platform technology stories emerge successful on the biotech scene. These platform stories are getting attention from not only VC firms, but institutional investors looking to take additional risks in their portfolio. This is a departure from the past several years in which companies with later-stage assets were the only investment opportunities for institutional investors. The tide seems to have turned and the early platform companies are now vying for the same Wall Street monies as the later-stage companies. A truly innovative breakthrough idea, such as the one Regulus is pursuing, will get funded. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: When Regulus first began, the CEO of Alnylam told investors that he expected Regulus to "dominate the microRNA space.” How do you think Regulus has stood up to that test?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Unfortunately, we did better than expected. And by unfortunately, I mean, we have scared away a lot of competition. Many people think that is good. I, personally, think that a little bit of competition is very healthy. So, unfortunately, we don’t have that, so the case of microRNA almost exclusively relies on how good Regulus is going to do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: That has also brought you some healthy collaborations and financial backing. Talk about your growth as a company and where you see yourselves going in the next five to 10 years.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The biggest risk for Regulus five years ago was, “Can you target microRNAs and have a sort of peak effect without having a lot of side effects?” That was the big biological risk. Today, we have been able to show in 25 different models of human studies and animal studies that you can do that with a good therapeutic model. So, now you can say that the proof of concept has been established. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, how do we look five years from now? We are very likely going to be a public company. We are still going to be less than 100 people. We are religiously defending our turf when we can, maintaining that the best brain trust one can possibly have in-house, but also utilizing a lot of extra hands outside. We going to have at least three programs in the clinic and maintain four to six preclinical programs at any given time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are some of your proudest accomplishments since Regulus was formed in September 2007?</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: For me, it is all about people, strategy and finance. I think we have been, so far, good on all three fronts, and that’s something I am proud about. We have brilliant people, who are all tremendously seasoned drug hunters or hugely experienced people in finance and operations. We are now at about 55 employees. We are one of the few companies that has been growing at significant rates over the past four years. We have raised over $110 million. The vast majority of this is from the alliances, so it is non-dilutive financing. And I think we have a very good strategy of how to methodically move the pipeline from a big idea to a meaningful set of preclinical and clinical progress.</span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-51950460429248552792012-04-10T16:16:00.000-07:002012-04-10T16:16:16.472-07:00Executive Profile: Brian O'Callaghan, President and CEO, Sangart<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jvHmsW4wEtc/T4S70RZPLCI/AAAAAAAAAJs/tE7RpFKphrA/s1600/o'callaghan-6598_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jvHmsW4wEtc/T4S70RZPLCI/AAAAAAAAAJs/tE7RpFKphrA/s320/o'callaghan-6598_web.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Brian O'Callaghan</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">O'Callaghan joined Sangart as president and CEO in June 2008. He brings a breadth of experience to Sangart, having held senior positions with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in both Europe and the U.S. These include senior positions with Pfizer in the U.K. and Merck Serono in Germany, before becoming president and CEO of BioPartners, a Swiss-based biotechnology company. Since relocating to the U.S., O'Callaghan has held senior management positions at Novartis, Covance, and, most recently, NPS Pharmaceuticals, where he served as chief commercial officer. O'Callaghan brings his extensive experience to lead Sangart through regulatory submission and commercial launch of the MP4 platform.</span> <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: In looking at the history of Sangart in San Diego, it was interesting to me that you have both these civilian and military applications. Tell me more about Sangart's connection with the Letterman Army Institute of Research.</span></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The company was founded by a guy named Dr. Bob Winslow. Bob started this journey when he was with the Letterman Army Institute of Research about 20-30 years ago. His experience there culminated in him founding Sangart about 14 years ago.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is great is that some of the people still with Sangart today were with Bob at the Letterman Army Institute of Research. Literally decades of research has gone into developing what became MP4, which is Sangart’s platform product.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What Bob discovered was that you could replicate a low-volume setting for some of the properties of blood. As a result, Bob developed the MP4 molecule as an agent that could very effectively transmit gases into the body. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are the two gases that Sangart is currently focusing on with MP4: oxygen and carbon monoxide. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The oxygenated compound (MP4OX) is designed to deliver oxygen in the capillaries, where red blood cells may not naturally reach, when the body is suffering from hemorrhagic shock. The carbon monoxide formulation (MP4CO) is designed to deliver therapeutic levels of carbon monoxide to patients with sickle cell anemia.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: How does this compare to standard care available today?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: There is no real treatment right now for trauma-related ischemia. When patients suffer blood loss due to a traumatic event, they eventually get to a critical care setting. They get all sorts of fluids, including blood, as well as surgery, of course. If the lactic acid levels, which are routinely measured, show lactic acidosis, an indicator of a lack of oxygen, then they receive MP4OX, in a blind setting, as an addition to standard of care. We measure the resolution of lactic acidosis, which indicates the delivery of oxygen to the ischemic tissue. We also look at other endpoints, such as the ICU setting to see if they are spending less time in the hospital on ventilators, etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our Phase IIb study is evaluating MP4OX plus standard of care in trauma patients, with lactic acidosis due to hemorrhagic shock. It’s running in about 50 sites in about 15 countries throughout the world. </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: How do you balance the need to raise capital with everyday activities?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We have been insulated more than most from all that is going on in the last two to three years because our investors are very patient.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are funded through to our next major milestone events. Those being the generation of the next rounds of clinical data from the PhIIb study for MP4OX and the PhIb study for MP4CO.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With positive data from our two clinical trials, we are confident of raising additional funding from existing or alternative investors.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: Where do the biggest opportunities lie?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The biggest opportunity, by far, is in trauma. You can take oncology and cardiology and the other major killers, and you can combine all the deaths that come from those and they don't compare to trauma. Trauma is, by far, the biggest killer in our society.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The good news is that if you do get into a critical care setting, your chances of survival are actually very high. This product will be serving a critical unmet medical need where there are not any products like it out there. The market is estimated to be about $6 billion in the developed worlds at least.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When you look at the pharmacoeconomic aspects of keeping people out of ICU and off ventilators, while also getting them out of the hospital faster, you are potentially saving thousands of dollars per day by using MP4OX. We are estimating savings of anywhere between $5,000 to $10,000 a day, while also contributing to patients being discharged, on average, a week earlier.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What does the future of traumatic brain injury and other types of severe blood loss treatment look like 20 years from now?</span></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Traumatic brain injury is one of the things the Army wants us to look at. Traumatic brain injury might have more of a relevance to the military in the battlefield than the civilian setting. What they are looking for are newer formulations that are more robust to be used in the battlefields. So they are looking for formulations that can basically be used in the soldiers' backpacks or in forward positioned surgical units.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Q: What differentiates Sangart from others in the field?</span></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: Studies show that our MP4 products can potentially be safer and more effective as therapies for trauma and sickle cell disease. We have investors who are very patient and willing to continue investing in us given our strong clinical data. Finally, and very importantly, we are willing to do our development overseas rather than the U.S. should it serve MP4’s needs. </span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-70571196046025688072012-03-13T12:41:00.002-07:002012-03-13T12:46:59.299-07:00Executive Profile: Rob Perez, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Cubist Pharmaceuticals<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MnkrwkyFmFw/T1-jMFnXEtI/AAAAAAAAAJg/wddH8so0Skg/s1600/Perez+May+2008+website.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MnkrwkyFmFw/T1-jMFnXEtI/AAAAAAAAAJg/wddH8so0Skg/s320/Perez+May+2008+website.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rob Perez</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perez has served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cubist since August 2007. </span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He grew up in the Los Angeles area and received his undergraduate degree from California State University at Los Angeles and his MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA. He began his career as a sales representative in South Central Los Angeles working for Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. Ultimately, he became a regional business director, responsible for sales, marketing and national accounts for the western regional business unit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After Zeneca, he joined Biogen, in 1995, where he worked with the team that developed a commercial model for Biogen’s first product, Avonex for multiple sclerosis. He eventually led the U.S. neurology business before leaving to join Cubist. At Cubist, he says, they saw a potential in Cubicin that no one else saw.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“I have always worked at companies that have had to compete against larger firms with more resources, so the hallmark of all the businesses that we’ve built has been our ability to learn quickly,” Perez said. “I try to find people and develop processes that allow our team to gain a competitive advantage by listening to those closest to the customer, and by then making incremental changes to the business based on this feedback.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: Share with me a brief history of Cubist Pharmaceuticals and some of the important milestones of the company.</strong></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The company was founded in 1992, and, in the fall of 1996, Cubist completed its initial public offering. To date, Cubicin (daptomycin for injection) has been used to treat more than a million patients and Cubist is well on its way to surpassing $1 billion in U.S. annual net revenues. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The history of Cubist is a great story that is really about the people who have collectively advanced the science and the business to where we are today, a successful pharmaceutical company. At Cubist we don’t fear failure and that is a large part of what has made us successful. Our culture is one that rewards success, but, at the same time, we view failure as an opportunity to learn. The best example of this at Cubist was the “rescuing” of daptomycin after the Phase 3 results from community-acquired pneumonia were known. Daptomycin failed to meet statistical noninferiority criteria in a clinical trial for severe community-acquired pneumonia. We needed to understand why it did not work in the lungs and we launched an effort to isolate the effect. We discovered the reason and published the results. We ended up with a drug approved in the U.S. for complicated skin and skin structure infections in 2003, and, three years later, received an expanded U.S. label for Cubicin for the treatment of S. aureus bloodstream infections (bacteremia), including right-sided infective endocarditis caused by MRSA and MSSA.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More recently, 2011 was a transformational year for Cubist with positive Phase 2 results for two of our antibiotic candidates, propelling them into Phase 3 — one program already enrolling patients and the other expected to start this year. Also in 2011, we partnered with Optimer Pharmaceuticals to co-promote their therapy, Dificid, for the treatment of clostridium-dificile associated diarrhea (CDAD). We capped off the year with a business development deal to acquire Adolor Corporation, adding a new U.S. commercial product in Entereg and a promising pipeline candidate in CB-5945, also on a path to begin Phase 3 trials in 2012.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are some of your biggest goals for the upcoming year?</strong></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The transformational year I just mentioned has put a lot on our plate for 2012. We are going to be focused on executing our business plan aimed at continued momentum in Cubicin sales and putting more marketing muscle behind our newly acquired drug Entereg toward our goal of achieving peak annual sales of $100 million. Also, our sales force will continue to co-promote Dificid as part of our strategic partnership with Optimer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the clinic, we expect to have three Phase 3 programs up and running this year. There is a great and growing unmet medical need for antibiotics to treat serious infections, and two of the three programs are focused on antibiotics. The third program we acquired through the Adolor acquisition focuses on a therapy to treat a gastrointestinal side effect of opioid pain management.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What are the biggest challenges facing developers of novel antibiotics today?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: The challenges we face today started appearing on the horizon several years ago. Despite the remarkable public health success of anti-infective agents, there is a trend toward increasing numbers of bacterial infections that exhibit resistance to new and standard antimicrobials, with 70 percent of hospital-acquired infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to at least one antimicrobial. At the same time, many pharmaceutical companies have backed away from research and development of new antimicrobials because of increased incentives to develop drugs in other therapeutic areas and because of contradicting market forces within the antimicrobial marketplace. As a consequence, anti-infective research has virtually dried up, leaving very few new anti-infective agents in the near term. Cubist is one of the few companies with a promising pipeline in this area. Some public health leaders have identified the challenge and are prompting government action. Now is the time to identify and implement appropriate incentives that will drive antimicrobial research and development.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Recommended incentives have recently been manifested in the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now (GAIN) Act, which has now been introduced in both the Senate and the House. Dr. Barry Eisenstein, senior vice president of scientific affairs for Cubist, was invited to testify at a congressional subcommittee <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=9346">hearing</a> on the topic. The bi-partisan legislation calls for the enactment of specific economic and market incentives to entice pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics to treat the growing number of serious infections caused by multi drug-resistant (MDR) bacteria. For example, the legislation’s provision for extending the exclusivity granted to some badly needed antibiotics is designed to have the same impact on antibiotic R&D as the Orphan Drug Act had on drugs to treat rare diseases, which now enjoy a healthy pipeline. <em>CHI recently released a report on the subject, available <a href="http://chi.org/uploadedFiles/Industry_at_a_glance/CHI%20Antibiotic%20White%20Paper_FINAL.pdf">here</a>. </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another challenge that we are working through with others in industry is clear guidance from FDA in defining new regulatory approaches to facilitate antimicrobial development and approval. Recent meetings on this front have been promising, and we look forward to working closely with FDA to ensure more therapies are approved for patients battling sometimes life-threatening infectious diseases. More on this topic can be found at a website sponsored by Cubist: <a href="http://www.battlingsuperbugs.com/">http://www.battlingsuperbugs.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: What is the most rewarding part of developing products that address unmet medical needs in the acute care environment?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: We know that Cubicin has been used to treat more than a million patients and we know that if our pipeline of much needed therapies is someday approved, millions more could benefit from much needed therapies. We use the term patients, but these are people who are moms and dads, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Everyone at Cubist comes to work each and every day with the goal of contributing to the advancement of therapies and leaves at the end of the day knowing that somewhere that day Cubist made a difference in someone’s life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: When you’re not working, where do you like to spend your time?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: I have three great passions outside of work. First and foremost is my family. My wife and I take such great pleasure in watching our kids’ many interests/activities. Second, I enjoy spending time trying to make a difference in the lives of kids who don’t have the educational opportunities that my kids have been blessed with. Finally, my one vice is basketball. I am admittedly a “hoop junkie.” I play with friends whenever I can (although at my age it is not really basketball, but something closely resembling the sport that I love) and also avidly follow the Lakers, and UCLA basketball. There are a lot of demands on my time, but setting priorities helps me maintain a healthy balance in life. For our corporate intranet I publish a blog sharing musings about the business/industry and observations from a personal perspective — I repurpose part of my blog posts on my twitter account @<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/robperez32">robperez32</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</em></span><br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-19572886805703831582012-03-12T15:27:00.001-07:002012-03-12T16:05:03.168-07:00Executive Spotlight: Jeff Dunn, President and CEO, SI-Bone<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d3GIjIZoGzM/T15zboB6UbI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/GIUdNy00V-0/s1600/jeffrey_dunn2%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d3GIjIZoGzM/T15zboB6UbI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/GIUdNy00V-0/s200/jeffrey_dunn2%5B1%5D.jpg" width="158" yda="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jeff Dunn</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://si-bone.com/">SI-BONE Inc.</a> of San Jose, Calif. is the leading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacroiliac_joint">sacroiliac (SI) joint</a> medical device company dedicated to the development of tools and products for diagnosing and treating patients with low back issues related to SI joint pathology. The company has developed, and is manufacturing and marketing, less invasive approaches using implants for the treatment of SI joint disorders. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dunn has more than 30 years of executive experience, including serving as the CEO of six other companies. He has taken one company public, sold all the others to larger public companies, served on numerous boards of directors and is an advisor to other CEOs. Prior to SI-BONE Inc., Dunn was CEO of INBONE Technologies, which he built into a leading ankle replacement and small bone fusion medical device company. Dunn led the sale of INBONE to Wright Medical in April 2008. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a master’s of business administration from Babson College.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: How did SI-BONE form?</strong></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A: It was <a href="http://beckersorthopedicandspine.com/orthopedic-spine-industry-leaders/item/1601-orthopedic-and-spine-industry-leader-to-know-dr-mark-reiley-of-californias-berkeley-orthopaedic-medical-group">Dr. Mark Reiley</a>, who founded <a href="http://www.kyphon.com/us/home.aspx?siteid=1">Kyphon</a> and invented kyphoplasty (a procedure that attempts to stop the pain caused by spinal bone fractures) with whom I got together about six years ago when I became the CEO of two of Mark’s companies. One was an ankle replacement company and one was a small bone fusion company. One company was in Colorado; one was in Berkeley, Calif., and I was the CEO of both of those at the same time. We merged those companies into a company called INBONE Technologies, which was acquired by Wright Medical Group in April 2008. Wright Medical is not in the spine business, so, as part of the deal, we took all the assets related to SI-BONE — the patents, the 510(k)s, etc. — and we spun that company out into an independent company.</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For the next seven or eight months, we had no employees; it was just Mark and I. On Nov. 26, 2008, we received 510(k) clearance from the FDA. We then raised private money, about $4.5 million from friends and family. We hired our first employee in April 2009 and basically spent that year setting up manufacturing, quality systems, setting up the training programs for the surgeons, doing work around the diagnosis and finding the diagnostic algorithms to teach surgeons how to diagnose SI joint pain.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have trained more than 700 surgeons to date. We did our very first surgery in June of 2009. We have grown as a company approximately 50 percent every single quarter, quarter over quarter, since June 2009.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Q: I also saw that you recently raised some venture funding.</strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
A: We raised $16 million from <a href="http://www.montreuxequity.com/sec/">Montreux Equity Partners</a> and also <a href="http://www.skylineventures.com/">Skyline Ventures</a>. Our very first venture money came in last summer from Skyline, and then we had a bunch of private investors also participate who were friends of Mark’s and mine that have made money with us before.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br />
<br />
Q: Talk a little bit about this type of surgery and the market SI-Bone is addressing. </strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
A: There is $50 billion a year spent on lower back pain in the United States. Clinical studies show that 22 percent of that is related to the SI joint. The only surgery to treat the SI joint over the last number of decades is an open surgery where the patient endures a 12-inch incision. It is very bad for the patient, obviously. Ours is a minimally invasive surgery. It takes about an hour. So, we are treating something that almost has never been treated, but accounts for 22 percent of all lower back pain. As you probably know, the No. 1 reason that people visit their physician is for the flu. The second most important reason is back pain. So, it is a huge problem, and we are addressing an underserved, unmet need that afflicts millions of patients. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br />
Q: How does the company stand out in the competitive landscape for minimally invasive surgery and surgery like yours?</strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
A: Well, in the United States, there is only one very small company and one medium sized private company which have introduced products to compete with us. Let’s just say we have 95-plus percent market share. In Europe, there is one other competitor. We believe in our product. It is significantly better, easier to use for surgeons, better for the patient.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The key, though, is to educate the surgeons on how to diagnose this thing. We believe that everything is about patient selection because many people with lower back pain have an under-diagnoses. We spend a tremendous amount of money on educating surgeons, physician assistants, physical therapists, etc. about how to effectively diagnose these patients. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br />
Q: Are you seeing patients that have gone through fusions or other surgeries come to you afterward? Are these new patients?<br />
</strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
A: We have plenty of patients that are both <em>de novo</em>, who have been <br />
diagnosed with sacroiliac joint issues or dysfunction, and previous spine fusion patients.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
In the United States, there are hundreds of thousands of lumbar fusions each year. Literature shows that about 75 percent of all patients that have lumbar fusions develop adjacent segment disorder within five years. So, if you fuse a part of the lumbar spine, typically it affects other pieces of the orthopedic anatomy. The majority of people who have those kinds of surgeries within five years will have some kind of SI joint issues.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br />
Q: You touched on this a little bit, but what does the reimbursement landscape look like for your device? </strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
A: Our reimbursement rates are typically running about 94 percent. So, the reimbursement is actually quite reasonable. But, of course, as we get bigger as a company, the payers, i.e. the insurance companies and Medicare and the key medical societies including NASS, AAOS, CNS, AANS, ISAAS, ISIS and the AMA, are going to want to see efficacy, economic justification and safety data, so that is why we are investing so much in clinical studies. We are launching multiple studies. <br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br />
Q: What else is good to know about SI-BONE?</strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
A: What I am most proud of is we have hired 100 people in the last two years and we just have a tremendously talented group of people that are working together to help these patients. They are thriving as I am on the patients. What’s more fun than helping patients? Additionally, we have an advisory board made up of brilliant medical professionals like Dr. Steve Garfin, Dr. Frank Phillips, Dr. Paul Anderson and others. I would go out on a limb and say that our advisory board is among the most talented and respected spine advisory board in the United States.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, we have a very good group of people that are trying to solve this problem and help educate people here and in Europe <span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">about how to help these patients.<br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-7238025636462568482012-03-02T15:01:00.000-08:002012-03-02T15:01:39.990-08:00CHI Spotlight: Opening a New Door for Unfunded Research Projects<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uA9KbQCKFtc/T1FQdUoOqpI/AAAAAAAAAJI/U58lrADxIWQ/s1600/Marc+Boutin+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uA9KbQCKFtc/T1FQdUoOqpI/AAAAAAAAAJI/U58lrADxIWQ/s320/Marc+Boutin+002.jpg" uda="true" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marc Boutin</td></tr>
</tbody></table><em><a href="http://www.nationalhealthcouncil.org/">The National Health Council</a> (NHC) is the only organization of its kind that brings together all segments of the health community to provide a united voice for the more than 133 million people with chronic diseases and disabilities and their family caregivers. Made up of more than 100 national health-related organizations and businesses, its core membership includes approximately 50 of the nation’s leading patient advocacy groups, which control its governance. </em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em><a href="http://www.nationalhealthcouncil.org/pages/page-content.php?pageid=88#Marc_M._Boutin__JD_">Marc Boutin</a> serves as the organization’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Throughout his career, he has been actively involved in health advocacy, policy, and both federal and state legislation. He has designed and directed advocacy strategies for legislative initiatives, which have included issues ranging from access to healthcare to cancer prevention. Before joining the Council, Boutin served as the vice president of government relations and advocacy at the American Cancer Society for New England. In addition, he was a faculty member at Tufts University Medical School, where he lectured on healthcare policy.</em><br />
<br />
<strong>Q: I understand the National Health Council has started a new program that connects promising biomedical research with funding sources. Talk a little about the impetus for your newest endeavor, HealthResearchFunding.org?</strong><br />
<br />
A: <a href="http://healthresearchfunding.org/">HealthResearchFunding.Org</a> was conceived several years ago by a group of chief medical officers and research directors from NHC member <a href="http://www.nationalhealthcouncil.org/pages/member-roster.php">patient advocacy organizations</a>. They recognized the need to make the best use of the significant expertise and funds spent on the rigorous scoring of research proposals. With the help of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the NHC set out to develop an innovative solution to make the most out of the nation's investment in biomedical research. <br />
<br />
<strong>Q: How might someone who is interested participate? </strong><br />
<br />
A: Researchers whose proposals have been peer reviewed, deemed meritorious, but unfunded by either the NIH or by an NHC member organization, are invited to register with HealthResearchFunding.org. Once registered, researchers can upload requests for proposals and search for funding sources. There is no charge for use of the site by investigators or their institutions.<br />
<br />
By using this online resource, potential research supporters can avoid duplication of effort and more efficiently identify and evaluate peer-reviewed research proposals. On the other hand, researchers gain another opportunity to showcase their worthy proposals and possibly find a funding source.<br />
<br />
The database will be expanded later this year to include NHC business and industry members and funding sources outside NHC membership.<br />
<br />
<strong>Q: Who may search the database?</strong><br />
<br />
A: Registered investigators have the ability to search for funding sources through the database, but cannot view or search for proposals from other researchers. Funding sources are able to search for research proposals, individual researchers and information from other funding organizations. <br />
<br />
<strong>Q: How does HealthResearchFunding.org help researchers?</strong><br />
<br />
A: <a href="http://healthresearchfunding.org/">HealthResearchFunding.org</a> helps researchers obtain a broad audience of potential funding sources from the nonprofit sector for their proposed research. <br />
<br />
By offering investigators the opportunity to promote their peer-reviewed research proposals through the database, we hope to increase the likelihood of potential funding for worthy health research. By utilizing the database, researchers gain an organized and unvarying environment in which to exhibit their proposals alongside their peers. As the system grows, their respective research institutions could spend less time, effort, and resources looking for financial support and more time conducting research to aid in the development of new treatments for patients.<br />
<br />
<strong>Q: How does this database help funding sources? </strong><br />
<br />
A: HealthResearchFunding.org helps participating funding organizations avoid duplication of effort as they seek to fund research by making use of the significant public investment of intellectual capital, time, and funds in the NIH and NHC member peer review process. When on the database, funding organizations are able to upload requests for proposals and have the ability to post ideas for collaboration with other funding sources.<br />
<br />
<strong>Q: What is the ultimate goal for this program?</strong><br />
<br />
Our goal is to help researchers and funding sources in their development of new treatments and cures for people with chronic conditions.<br />
<br />
To do so, we hope to expedite the process by which participating non-government funding organizations underwrite biomedical research by linking them with researchers whose proposals to NIH and NHC member organizations have been deemed meritorious and worthwhile.<br />
<br />
To learn more, visit <a href="http://www.healthresearchfunding.org/">http://www.healthresearchfunding.org/</a> or write to <a href="mailto:healthresearchfunding@nhcouncil.org">healthresearchfunding@nhcouncil.org</a>.<br />
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<!-- AddThis Button END --></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8992739065445039328.post-19813518271216666662012-02-03T13:43:00.000-08:002012-02-03T13:43:09.783-08:00Speaker Spotlight: Judith Kjelstrom, Ph.D., Director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wdat-kAmvb4/TyxMZXRhKsI/AAAAAAAAAI8/8nuqlUxATc4/s1600/kjelstrom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" sda="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wdat-kAmvb4/TyxMZXRhKsI/AAAAAAAAAI8/8nuqlUxATc4/s320/kjelstrom.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judith Kjelstrom</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.biotech.ucdavis.edu/Directors/director.html">Judith Kjelstrom, Ph.D.</a>, also known as Dr. Judy, has a rich background in health science and biotechnology education and training, clinical laboratory science, microbiology and immunology and program administration. She directs the UC Davis biotechnology program and the advanced degree program for corporate employees. Besides co-directing the UC Davis-</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Howard Hughes Medical Institute's <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/imbs/">Integrating Medicine into Basic Science</a> graduate training program, she is also a lecturer</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in the departments of microbiology and molecular and cellular biology at UC Davis. Kjelstrom received her bachelor's degree in biology</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> from Sacramento State University and her doctorate in microbiology from UC Davis.</span><br />
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If you have not already secured your ticket to hear Dr. Judy speak next week, contact CHI! </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><br />
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Q: As the director for UC Davis’ Biotechnology Program, how would you describe the environment for biotech education?<br />
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A: The environment at UC Davis continues to be strong in all aspects of biotechnology education from undergraduate to doctorate level. UC Davis continued to increase its prominence in research, especially in the sciences. The campus received more than $684 million in research funds in the last year. While federal research dollars fell slightly as stimulus funds tapered off, awards from non-governmental organizations quadrupled and state research funding grew by half. <br />
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Due to the breath of expertise and the collaborative nature of the various schools and colleges, we are able to offer research opportunities in biomedical application, agricultural and environmental biotech as well as the newer industrial areas such as biofuels. Enrollments in biotech-related programs continue to grow. For example, the <a href="http://www.deb.ucdavis.edu/">Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology</a> (DEB) graduate program, which is housed within the biotechnology program, has grown from 20 students in 2000 to 220 Ph.D. students in 2012. Having fellowship support for graduate training is critical for recruiting the most talented students to campus.<br />
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We recently received another five-year renewal for the National Institutes of Health training grant in biomolecular technology, in which the DEB is the formal graduate education program. Other related training grants, in which I am involved, are the National Science Foundation-funded <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=12759">Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (<acronym title="Integrative Graduate Education, Research, and Traineeship">IGERT)</acronym></a> program</span> </span>and the UC Davis-Howard Hughes Medical Institute <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/imbs/">Integrating Medicine into Basic Science</a> training program, which provide additional scholarship support for DEB students. Our industry partners provide additional training through paid internships and co-ops, which are required for all DEB graduate students.<br />
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Q: What do you see as some of the biggest challenges, from an educational standpoint, going forward? <br />
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A: In a recent statement by Chancellor Linda Katehi, reduced funding from the state of California has challenged all of the UC campuses. Increased dependence on student tuition and private funding to meet our education and research missions puts in question the very nature of the university and its relationship with the state and public. In the 1960s, the <a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/aboutuc/masterplan.html">California Master Plan</a> led to the creation of what is recognized widely as the best public research university in the world. But, in the past 20 years, the commitment to the master plan has eroded and continues to do so. The state's contribution to students on the UC campuses has been reduced from $17,000 per student in 1990-1991 to less than $7,000 per student in 2010-2011. In the past four years, UC Davis alone has lost 40 percent of its state budget, while tuition has increased by 84 percent. The future competitiveness of both California and America depend on a healthy and widely accessible UC system. <br />
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Moreover, in today's academic environment, research is a vital part of this learning. For a nation that wants to be a global leader through innovation, this must be a skill accessible to all citizens. The ability to think creatively, act entrepreneurially and drive change when needed must be part of our public identity.<br />
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The biotechnology program has been hit hard by budget reductions and is unable to expand our staff and operational budgets to meet the growing demand for our programs in graduate education and K-14 outreach. Paid industrial internships for the DEB students are in constant demand, outreach programs such as <a href="http://biotechsystem.ucdavis.edu/">BiotechSYSTEM</a>, <a href="http://teenbiotechchallenge.ucdavis.edu/index.html">Teen Biotech Challenge</a>, <a href="http://ppge.ucdavis.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=131">Biotechnology in the Classroom</a> are underfunded, but are critical pieces of biotech education in the regional high schools. Without corporate support, we cannot meet the needs of students involved in biotechnology.<br />
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Q: What are some of the challenges you have already overcome? <br />
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A: We continually seek new corporate partners for DEB industrial internships and sponsorships for our “Train the Trainer” workshops and biotech enrichment programs for middle school and high school students. High school students who enter the Teen Biotech Challenge are hungry for summer research experiences, but funding and research mentors are limited. To address this need, the biotechnology program has partnered with the <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/stemcellresearch/">Institute of Regenerative Cures at the School of Medicine</a> to apply for a creativity award through the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to provide summer research experiences for winners of the TBC. <br />
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Q: What are you most looking forward to hearing about at BioMed Innovation Night?<br />
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A: I am eager to meet <a href="http://www.baybio.org/bio-percival-barretto-ko">Percival Barretto-Ko</a> in person and learn more about <a href="http://www.scienceworx.org/">ScienceWoRx</a>. He and I share a passion for medicine as well as teaching. I would like to explore strategies as to how we might develop a similar partnership in the Sacramento Valley. Academic-industry-government partnerships will enable us to build a strong STEM workforce.</span><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana;">CHI-Advancing California biomedical research and innovation</span></em><br />
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