Panels

10:30

The Future of Healthcare: The Changing Face of Policy, Payment, and Science in Drug Development

Mr. Jevon has been a Partner at Boston Millennia Partners since its founding in 1997. He was previously a venture partner at Boston Capital Ventures, which he joined in 1996. Prior to that, he was Managing Director and co-owner of Watch Hill Corporation, a Boston based private investment firm. Previously, he was Controller of Bolt, Beranek and Newman’s Communications Division. His earlier business career included several assignments in General Electric’s Financial Management Program.

Mr. Jevon serves as a Director of Athenix, an agricultural-biotechnology company developing insect and herbicide resistant plants; PHT, a provider of mobile and Web technologies that help pharmaceutical companies simplify clinical trials; and MedAptus, a healthcare information technology company. Previous investment responsibilities have included Galt Associates, which provides safety and outcomes data management products and services to major pharmaceutical companies (sold to Cerner (Nasdaq:CERN)); eMed, which provides systems to digitally store and transmit radiological images (sold to Cedara Software (NasdaqGM: CDSW)); Proteome, a protein database company (sold to Incyte Genomics (NasdaqGM: INCY)); and HotJobs.com, an online recruiting solution (acquired by Yahoo (NasdaqGS: YHOO).

Mr. Jevon has a BA in economics from Haverford College and holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College.

Marcia Kean has close to 30 years of health care industry experience, including senior positions with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical service firms, non-profit research organizations, and consulting firms. As one of the first senior-level practitioners of communications in the biotech industry, she has pioneered good practices in the field, and has been a prominent author and speaker on key communications and valuation issues facing senior management.
In the past, she served as founder and Managing Director of the Corporate Communications practice at Feinstein Kean Healthcare. Mrs. Kean has also served as vice president, corporate communications of Damon Corporation (NYSE) and of its subsidiary, Damon Biotech (Nasdaq), one of the first biotech companies in New England. She was the first and only female officer in the history of Damon Corporation. She was among the originating team that designed the successful BIO CEO and Investor Conference, now held annually. She served on the Steering Committee of BIO 2000 in Boston -- the largest convocation in the history of the biotech industry up to that time – and was appointed as the Chair of the Communications Committee for that event.
Mrs. Kean holds an M.B.A. in finance from New York University and a 
B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Lewis is Chief Executive Officer, Executive Chairman and a Director of ZIOPHARM Oncology (Nasdaq: ZIOP), serving in these capacities since January 2004. Additionally, Dr. Lewis has been Chief Medical Officer since June 2008. From July 1994 until June 2001, Dr. Lewis served as Professor of Surgery and Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He has been actively involved in leading translational and clinical research and development in cancer, and is globally recognized by patient advocacy groups. He has received numerous honors and awards in medicine and science, including the ASCO Young Investigator Award, the Kristen Carr Fellowship, and the NIH travelling fellowship in molecular genetics, the Yale University Ohse Award, and the Royal College of Surgeons Trubshaw Medal. He served as Chief Medical Officer and Chairman of the Medical Board at Antigenics, Inc. from June 2000 until November 2003. He served as a director of Delcath systems (Nasdaq: DCTH) from 2007 to 2008.  He has served as a Director for private technology companies, the Yale Biotechnology and Pharma Society, and on the Board of POPPA (the Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance) of the New York Police Department (NYPD). He also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the Sarcoma Foundation of America and on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Board of the Hope Funds for Cancer Research.

Wayne is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Biomedical Innovation at MIT working on healthcare strategy and policy issues related to science and medicine.  He is also Chairman, President and a member of the board of directors of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, a Washington DC based organization working with government and other agencies on evolving healthcare policy for Personalized Healthcare, VP Healthcare Strategy at Fuld and Co focusing on strategic simulations in healthcare, Chief Applications Officer for SciTech Strategies focusing on scientific competency and capacity development for academia and industry, and a member of the Ethics and Systems Medicine Program at Georgetown University.  He is a former Director of External Relations for Personalized Healthcare and Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) as part of External Medical Relations at AstraZeneca where he had responsibility for long-range external relations strategy and policy development.  Prior to that role, he was involved in long-term strategy development for the AstraZeneca Discovery, Development, and US Commercial divisions, and created and ran strategic intelligence units at both AstraZeneca and SmithKIine Beecham Pharmaceuticals.  He has presented at numerous forums on aspects of personalized healthcare, evidence-based medicine, new development paradigms, and strategy development.  He holds an S.B. in Biology from MIT, a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Boston Univ., and received post-doctoral training in Cancer and Radiation Biology at the Univ. of Rochester.  Wayne lives in Malvern, PA, is married with two college-age children, and enjoys teaching martial arts (Tang Soo Do), restoring antique/classic Fords, and aviation history.

Dr. Ryan brings almost 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development to AVEO, including expertise in translational medicine and cancer biology. He joins the company after 11 years at Wyeth where he most recently held the position of Senior Vice President of Translational Research. In 2001, he was appointed head of the new Department of Experimental Medicine, which was created to explore new technologies such as pharmacogenomics in exploratory clinical trials, to work closely with FDA on clinical pharmacogenomics, and to bridge Discovery and Development with the creation of new biomarkers. In 1998, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Clinical Research & Development and assumed leadership of the Oncology and Infectious Disease therapeutic areas as well as the CR&D group. Dr. Ryan joined Genetics Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1995 as Vice President of Clinical Development and guided clinical programs that led to the licensure of products including Benefix, Neumega, and InductOs.   Prior to joining Genetics Institute, Dr. Ryan was an Executive Director of Clinical Research at Merck Research Laboratories.

Greg joined Halloran Consulting Group in 2007 as Vice President, Regulatory and Clinical Affairs. He focuses on helping emerging companies navigate the challenges of early product development while establishing appropriate clinical and regulatory structures to drive efficient development. He brings over 15 years of experience in worldwide regulatory affairs, quality assurance and clinical operations. Prior to joining Halloran, Greg as responsible for the regulatory affairs and quality assurance groups at ArQule as well as directing clinical operations for the oncology portfolio and managing the Company’s key strategic alliances in Japan with Kyowa Hakko Kogyo. Prior to joining ArQule, Greg worked in the regulatory affairs at PAREXEL International, Antigenics, Genzyme and DepoTech. He has successfully filed multiple clinical trial applications (IND or equivalent), successfully obtained Orphan Drug designation and/or Fast Track designation for six individual products and has had extensive involvement with NDA/MAA submissions resulting in multiple product approvals.

Greg holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

Panel Lead

Jennifer Woodfin, MBA 2010

Beatka Zakrzewski, MBA 2010

Choice and Change: Innovations in Consumer Centric Healthcare

With nearly 15 years of experience in corporate management, Jeff Carter has built international business relationships and global teams spanning several industries including pharmaceutical research and development, commercial software and online retail. Using his background in analytical sciences and his experience as a global business executive, he has helped bring the value of worldwide staffing strategies to large and mid-sized companies. As the head of the Patients Without Borders, Mr. Carter has built a team of experts in business development and case management and continues to expand Patients Without Borders' strong global network of hospitals and physicians.

As CEO and President of Phreesia, Inc., Chaim is responsible for driving Phreesia's initiative to deliver world-class patient self-service registration and education solutions, at no cost to physicians in their medical practices.

Prior to founding Phreesia, Chaim led the successful introduction of Spotfire, the leader in high-end analytics software, into the pharmaceutical sales and marketing space in the United States. Formerly, he launched and established Spotfire as a recognized name in Canada. Previously, Chaim was an integral member of the original team at Olap@Work, the leader in SQL server front-end tools, which was successfully sold to Business Objects. At Olap@Work, he built a global distribution network that positioned the company for successful acquisition.

Chaim attended Carleton University. He is a regular speaker, who recently presented at HBS, and is frequently quoted as an industry expert. In 2008, Chaim was named one of Tech's Best Entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek and was ranked, along with Phreesia's CTO and Co-founder Evan Roberts, among the top 30 Under 30 American Entrepreneurs by Inc.com.

 

Karen Mastrianni is the Director of Sales, Marketing & Service, IT at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.  At Blue Cross Blue Shield, she has focused on consumer directed healthplans as well as prevention and wellness based product.  Prior to her position at Blue Cross Blue Shield, she worked for WellPoint as a Senior Product Manager in Consumer-Directed Healthcare and also spend 16 years in the financial services industry most recently as a Director for PNC Global Fund Services.  Karen received a BS in Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire and received her MBA from Bentley University.

M. Daria Niewenhous is a member of Mintz Levin’s Health Law practice.  Daria provides a wide range of services to a variety of individual, corporate and institutional health care clients, including health systems and hospitals, nursing homes, home care providers, assisted living facilities, emergency medical transport providers, clinics, and sole and group practitioners. Daria returned to Mintz Levin after serving as Vice President of Legal Services at Lahey Clinic. Daria is a previous member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium and lectures on a range of health care topics, including HIPAA, fraud and abuse, managed care, and violence in the work place.   She was also a guest lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and Stonehill College.  She received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Salem State College, and earned her M.A. from Villanova University. Daria was awarded her J.D., cum laude, from New England School of Law.

Panel Leads

Thomas Kim, MBA 2010

2:00

Vaccines: The Cure of Tomorrow

Dr. Niranjan Kanesa-thasan is a medical executive with 16 years' experience in biologics development, focused on vaccines. During his career, Niranjan has achieved a successful private and public sector record managing research and development programs, leading to one licensed product (ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine) and 4 investigational vaccines at pre-registration stage. He has special expertise in flavivirus and poxvirus vaccines.

Dr. Niranjan Kanesa-thasan joined NVD in 2007 and has been CMO Americas since Apr 2008. He was previously at Acambis Inc. (Cambridge MA) for 3.5 years, where he was responsible for medical oversight of seven projects in clinical development (Phases 1-3) and for pharmacovigilance. Prior to joining industry, Niranjan served in the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for 12 years, including 10 years at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (Washington DC) and 2 years at the US Army Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (Ft Detrick MD). He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Baltimore MD), trained in pediatric infectious diseases and was chief resident at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital (Cleveland OH), and has a master’s degree in tropical medicine and hygiene from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda MD). 

Dr. Wayne C. Koff, Sr. Vice President and Chief of Vaccine Research at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) in New York City, is an internationally recognized viral immunologist in the field of AIDS vaccine research and development. Dr. Koff has been honored twice by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with the Special Act of Service Award for developing innovative strategies for accelerating global efforts in AIDS vaccine development. At IAVI, Dr. Koff focuses on addressing the major scientific challenges currently impeding AIDS vaccine development, and oversees IAVI’s research agenda to identify the next generation of promising vaccine concepts. Since joining IAVI in 1999, Dr. Koff's has led IAVI's programs to develop four vaccine technologies and five vaccine candidates from concept to clinical trials. Between 1992-1998, he served as Vice President, Vaccine Research and Development, at United Biomedical, Inc. (UBI), where he was responsible for its vaccine R&D program. During his tenure at UBI, the company conducted the first AIDS vaccine clinical trials in the developing countries of the People's Republic of China, Thailand, and Brazil. Between 1988-1992, he served as Chief of the Vaccine Research and Development Branch, Division of AIDS, at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), where he led the team that established the preclinical and clinical AIDS vaccine development programs for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). An Adjunct Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, Dr. Koff has published more than 70 scientific papers and edited five books on vaccine development. He received his B.A. from Washington University and his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Loucq directs the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), which seeks to accelerate the development of promising malaria vaccines and ensure their availability and use in developing countries. Dr. Loucq has more than 30 years of experience in medicine, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and global health. He joined MVI in February 2007, serving as Director of Strategy and Operations and as Interim Director until his appointment as MVI Director three months later.
His professional experience spans the globe: Born and educated in France, he has lived and worked in Algeria, Belgium, Chad, China, India, the Netherlands, Niger, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Loucq has managed vaccine businesses in China, India, and Thailand and has been involved in most stages of vaccine development. He has worked with large vaccine companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur, and biotech companies including Rhein Biotech and Acambis. He has extensive experience partnering with local governments, building public-private partnerships, and setting up local private collaborations.
Dr. Loucq earned his state doctorate of human medicine at the University of Paris X and a diploma of public health and tropical medicine from the University of Aix-Marseilles.

Dr. Ryan was formerly President and CEO of AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc.(now CellDex Pharmaceuticals), a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company developing vaccines and immunotherapeutics for  cancer, travelers, food safety, and global health. 
 
Dr. Ryan is also Research Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and serves on its Board of Visitors. She serves on the board of AMRI Global, IQuum, the Business Advisory Board of BIO Ventures for Global Health, the Scientific Advisory Board of Genocea, Inc., the Advisory Board of Phacilitate Vaccine Forum and the UMASS High Technology Executive Council. She is past Chair of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council,  served on its Board (1996-2008), as well as the Boards of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the New England Healthcare Institute and the Board of Associates of the Whitehead Institute,. She is  a member of the Strategy & Policy Council of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Collaborative Leadership Council.  In 2006 Massachusetts Governor Romney appointed her to the Robert H. Goddard Council on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

Dr. Ryan holds a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Cambridge University and BS degrees in Zoology, Microbiology and Chemistry from Bristol University. In 2007, Dr. Ryan was honored as a recipient of the Albert Einstein Award for outstanding achievement in the life sciences. In 2002 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II awarded Dr. Ryan the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to the research, development and promotion of biotechnology.

Johanna P. Daily, MD, MSc is an infectious disease trained physician who has been conducting field studies on malaria for over ten years.  She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She has carried out parasite drug resistance studies and training of in country scientists in Senegal for over seven years. Her most recent work has set out to define parasite correlates of disease severity using whole genome approach of both parasite and host expression profiles.  The identification of parasite proteins that are specifically expressed in severe disease may serve as vaccine candidates. She has also been involved in the analysis of community based malaria public health interventions on pediatric malaria related hospitalization in Rwanda.

Panel Lead

Nick Gagnon, MBA 2010

Erin Patrice O'Hare, MBA 2010

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Mr. Lapidus is an experienced life-science entrepreneur. Helicos is his third life-science start-up. In 1995 he founded EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ: EXAS), an applied genomics company that develops and markets non-invasive, DNA-based methods for early detection of colorectal and other common cancers. He served as the CEO from 1995 to 2001 and Chairman of EXACT Sciences' Board of Directors from 2000 until the end of 2005. Prior to EXACT, Mr. Lapidus founded Cytyc Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTC) and was President and CEO from 1987 through 1994.
In addition to his entrepreneurial activities, Mr. Lapidus holds academic appointments in the Pathology Department at Tufts University Medical School and MIT's Sloan School of Management. He earned a BSEE from Cooper Union. He has served as a trustee of Cooper Union since 2002. Mr. Lapidus holds 30 issued patents.

Dr. Lazarova has over 15 years of experience in organic chemistry, 10 of those as a medicinal chemist in the biotech field. She was involved with 2 start-up companies. Dr. Lazarova received her B.A. degree in chemistry from Harvard University, M.A. in organic chemistry from MIT and PhD in organic Chemistry from University of California, Los Angeles. She studied with Profs. Stuart Schreiber, Stephen Buchwald and Michael E. Jung.

Dr. Lazarova has worked at several Boston biotech companies (Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Daiichi Asubio Research Laboratories, Cubist Pharmaceuticals and ARIAD Pharmaceuticals) and has conducted medicinal chemistry research in the fields of immunology, antibacterial and antiviral agents, metabolic disorders and oncology. In 2006, Dr. Lazarova co-founded MedChem Partners, a Boston based medicinal chemistry service company, offering comprehensive medicinal chemistry support to biotech and pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories engaged in research and drug discovery.

Dr. Elenko is a Principal with PureTech Ventures. Prior to joining PureTech, Dr. Elenko was a consultant with McKinsey & Company where he advised senior executives of both Fortune 500 and specialty pharmaceutical companies on a range of issues such as product licensing, mergers and acquisitions, R&D strategy, and marketing. Some of his projects at McKinsey included working on a multi-billion dollar merger, crafting a brand strategy for a blockbuster drug, and recommending both pre-clinical and approved products for licensing. Dr. Elenko did graduate work in molecular pharmacology and cell biology that resulted in several peer reviewed papers and was the recipient of NIH training grants. While a graduate student, Dr. Elenko started and served as President of the Technology Evaluation Group, LLC which performed technical due diligence for angel investors in early stage life science companies. Dr. Elenko received his BA in Biology from Swarthmore College and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences from University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Ben Zeskind is the Founder and CEO of Immuneering Corporation, an MIT/Harvard startup developing groundbreaking computational models to predict which cancer patients will respond to specific immune-activating therapies.  Dr. Zeskind has developed the Immuneering concept, incorporated the Company, and filed the key patents.  After earning an S.B. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at MIT, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering at MIT’s Whitehead Institute in only three years. His Ph.D. research at MIT led to a first author publication in Nature Methods and an issued U.S. Patent with another pending. Most recently, he earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was recognized as a Baker Scholar, the highest award for distinction. Dr. Zeskind has worked at Merck’s Global Marketing Division, IBM, Constant Contact, Bose, and the US Army Natick Labs. He has delivered invited presentations on Immuneering’s technology at venues including the National Institutes of Health, and contributed to a recent Journal of Translational Medicine article on immunotherapy biomarkers through his role on a task force of the FDA and the International Society for the Biological Therapy of Cancer.

Dr. Fox is an experienced entrepreneur and scientist. Dr. Fox was the past founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Recovery Pharmaceuticals, a company developing and marketing medications for the treatment of addiction. Prior to founding Recovery Pharmaceuticals in 1998, she was Vice President, Immunology at ImmuLogic Pharmaceutical Corp. She joined ImmuLogic in 1993, having served on the faculty of the University Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, as Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure in the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Dept. of Medicine. Dr. Fox received her BA in Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT. Dr. Fox trained as a post-doc in cellular immunology at the NIH.

Panel Lead

Irina Kogan, MBA 2010

Regina Mikulinsky, MBA 2010

3:30

Business Development: Filling the Tank and Bridging the Patent Cliff

Steven Dickman is CEO of CBT Advisors, a boutique life sciences consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. CBT Advisors works with over 20 clients a year on
product positioning and corporate strategy; communications and fund-raising materials; and market analysis based on research and expert interviews. Clients include public and private biotech companies and life science venture funds. Before founding CBT Advisors in 2003, Mr. Dickman spent four years in venture capital with TVM Capital. There, Mr. Dickman’s deals included Sirna Therapeutics, sold to Merck in 2006 for $1.1 billion. Earlier, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, a freelance contributor to The Economist, Discover, Science, GEO and Die Zeit and the founding bureau chief for Nature in Munich, Germany. Fluent in German, Mr. Dickman received his biochemistry degree cum laude from Princeton University.

Julius (Jay) Knowles is Head, Platforms, Strategic Alliances for Novartis, responsible for creating technology-based and drug discovery collaborations.  Previously, Mr. Knowles was founder and President of Novalar Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company that recently launched their first drug.  Prior to this, he was Vice President, Business Development, at Structural Genomix, and Director, Research and Development Planning at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.  He has an MBA in Finance from Wharton Business School, and an M.Sc. from UC Berkeley in Chemistry.

Mr. Rhodes is Vice President of Business Development of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, located in Cambridge, MA, and has broad business, financial, and investing experience. Over the past 18 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, he has played a central role in numerous partnerships and over $500M in venture capital and other principal investments. He leads Alnylam's business and corporate development activities.  Recent highlights includes significant partnerships with Takeda, Glaxo, Kyowa Hakko, and Cubist, and the creation of the Regulus miRNA joint venture with Isis.  His previous experience includes work on commercial projects such as the launch of the blockbuster oncology drug Taxotere(R) and the design and restructuring of Wyeth's sales force. He joined Alnylam from Fidelity Biosciences, the biopharma venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments, where he was a partner and a founder of the group. While there, he had an active role investing in and building a number of private biopharmaceutical companies, including Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (formerly Microbia), FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, and Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals. He was also previously a Vice President with MPM Capital.  He holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Yale University.  He is a member of the Presidential Advisory Council of the Berklee College of Music.

Angelene Simonello is currently an Associate Director of Corporate Development at Biogen Idec, where she has responsibility for M&A activities as well as in-licensing immunology opportunities for external growth. Prior to joining Biogen Idec, she had roles in Business Development at ViaCell and as a consultant within the pharma and biotech industries for Arthur D. Little.

She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Daniel J. Hawkins is a founding member of Clarion Healthcare Consulting.  Mr. Hawkins has over 20 years of experience in healthcare, having worked with companies ranging from global pharmaceutical companies to development stage biotech and device companies.  He has worked in functional areas from product development through sales, on issues from product acceleration to board-level M&A advice, and in therapeutic areas ranging from immunosuppressives to OTC glucose tablets.  In addition, Mr. Hawkins has extensive depth in managed care and on the payor side having worked with health plans such as WellPoint and New York Life, provider groups, such as Fallon Clinic, and retail pharmacies, such as Wal*Mart.

Prior to founding Clarion, Mr. Hawkins was President of Hawkins Associates, a consulting firm providing advisory services to emerging and mid-cap healthcare companies as well as financial investors.  Mr. Hawkins was CEO of a development stage medical device company.  He spent his first 10 years at the consulting firm of Corporate Decisions, Inc. (now Oliver Wyman), where he was a partner, co-head of the healthcare practice and elected one of three members of the firm Management Committee.   Mr. Hawkins has an MBA from the Yale School of Management, and an AB in Economics from Princeton University.

Panel LeadS

Joseph P. Sterk, MBA 2010 & SM 2011