PROGRAMME

Raising the Curtain on EuroBiO 2008

At the request of its prestigious International Steering Committee, and in view of EuroBiO's nomination as the leading life sciences event of the rotating EU Presidency, the Organizing Committee was set two goals:

• to send the attendees home charged with ideas and opportunities
• to generate a snapshot of the collective mind of all those present at EuroBiO regarding burning issues that will be of use to policy makers at national and European levels.

To achieve this, EuroBiO 2008 is based on two highly innovative and interactive formats: the “House of Commons” Debates and the BioDialogues, which will take place respectively on Tuesday 7th October and on Wednesday 8th. During the Grand Reporting Plenary on Thursday 9th, Europe's decision makers will officially ask Conference what needs to change, for change to take place.

In the weeks that follow EuroBiO, representatives of all those present will be consulted through a Green Paper which will lead to the presentation of a White Paper to the European Institutions.

A follow-up meeting will be held with the European Institutions in the spring of 2009 to monitor progress.

You can either check the complete programme below or select a type of session from the following short list: Full Programme----------------------BiODialogues House of Commons Debates Plenary Round Table Special Session Tuesday October 07 th, 2008 11:00 - 12:30 | Plenary Opening Plenary Industry & Innovation Speakers Jonathan Knowles | President of Group Research, Member of the Executive Committee, Roche; Member of the Board of Genentech; Chairman of the Governing Board of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI); Chair of EFPIA’s Osamu Nagayama | Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chugai; former President, Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA) Philippe Pouletty | Director General, Truffle Capital Diane Romza-Kutz | Attorney-at-Law, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP 12:30 - --:00 | Exhibition Exhibition Opening and Welcome Reception 14:00 - 16:00 | House of Commons Debates House of Commons Debates Speakers Bruce W. Jenett | Partner, Co-Chair, Global Life Sciences Sector, DLA Piper US LLP Eric Meslin | Director, Indiana University, Center for Bioethics and Associate Dean; Professor of Medicine, Medical and Molecular Genetics, and Philosophy; Former Executive Director, National Bioethics Advisory Com Diane Romza-Kutz | Attorney-at-Law, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP 16:30 - 18:00 | Plenary Opening Plenary Science & Innovation Speakers Cathy Kinney | President & co-Chief Operating Officer, NYSE Euronext Wednesday October 08 th, 2008 08:00 - 19:00 | Career Fair Career Fair Open Day 09:00 - 11:00 | BiODialogues Health BioDialogue I: "Biosimilars: Europe must follow, not lead, in the use of biological therapies" Although Europe's medicines regulator believes that “follow-on” biological drugs cannot be regulated as generics, this approach creates cost barriers for manufacturers and healthcare services, trade barriers for some European producers, and reinforces the impression that the products of biotechnology have to be expensive drugs of last recourse. This debate asks whether the science that has led to the current position in the EU is complete and defensible, and it will explore the relationships between the cost and the patterns of use of biologicals. Speakers Gerald Keusch | Assistant Provost and Associate Dean for Global Health, Boston University; Former Director, Fogarty International Center, NIH Ingrid Kossler | President of EUROPA DONNA Theodore Roumel | Vice President for Research Innovation and Commercialization at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute The Food Chain: “From Fork to Farm” Traceability along the entire supply chain is a key concern for those involved in the food industry. Recent food scares, where products have been found to be unsafe, have led consumers to demand full traceability in order to have confidence in the safety of foods that they have purchased. Consequently food traceability is a key component of any quality management system. Companies with effective traceability systems have tight control over their supply chains and are more productive and efficient. Essentially, such systems enable manufacturing without waste thereby adding more value. Food traceability systems facilitate the instant recall of defective products ensuring that the brand integrity of the products is not compromised. In essence, food traceability is a risk management tool that can protect the food organization from negative fallout if unfavourable situations arise. Traceability gives reassurance to the customer and gives confidence to the food industry. It should be welcomed by the food industry as another step forward in protecting the consumer. Biofuel or food: is there a dilemma? Over the course of 2007, the huge enthusiasm for biofuel around Europe was replaced by doubts and cynicism about the motivations of those who back this “green” approach to fuel production. There is an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu. Questions are being asked about the real economic, energetic, and environmental benefits of biofuels. What contribution can they make to energy needs? And do they provide value for money relative to other solar energy capture methods. Even more fundamentally, some groups question any approach that only increases energy supply without reducing energy demand. On the other hand, to what extent is the venom being directed at biofuels only because biotechnology has been an easy scapegoat? This debate starts from the facts of energy needs and examines how society and technology will dictate the choices around biofuels. 11:30 - 13:00 | Plenary Agriculture Plenary: "Meeting Agri-Food Production Challenges" Speakers Barbara Mazur | Vice-President, Trait Technologies, Pioneer HiBred George Rothschild | Emeritus Professor, Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, UK; Chairperson, European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) Avigad Vonshak | Director, The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research (BIDR), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel 13:00 - 14:00 | Break Lunch Break 14:00 - 16:00 | BiODialogues White BioDialogue II: "Engineering Green Chemistry: Towards a New Eco-industry" Moving towards “greener” solutions in the chemical industry requires standardization of production and the reconcilation of new biological feedstocks from sources with the products that industry and consumers demand. This will require the evolution of a large set of technical and infrastructural measures. It is not clear that all the technical challenges can be met or that politicians recognize the need to integrate green chemistry all the way from the crop to the finished product, as they have done for biofuels. This debate will ask whether there is a need for investment and incentivisation to promote the R&D on the technical hurdles or to favour biological sourcing, a form of market security. Perhaps an amended Common Agricultural Policy in Europe, for instance, can align the capabilities of farmers, breeders, and engineers alike. Speakers Brent Erickson | Vice President of the Industrial and Environmental Section at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Health BioDialogue II: "Can European Institutions Help Defragment the Market in Healthcare, and Hence Promote Innovation?" Huge amounts of “innovation” are needed in European healthcare just to overcome market barriers. This deflects effort, and investment, away from new diagnostic or therapeutic approaches that are desperately needed to reinvent European health systems in the 21st century. Why can European and national governments not harmonise regulations and health practices, or simply buy into innovation rather than outmoded, ineffective medicine? Would a government role in market creation help or would it be enough for politicians simply to send the right signals. This debate is not about whether market access is a fundamental barrier to the life sciences in Europe: it almost certainly is. To overcome that barrier, however, it is necessary to identify who benefits from the current system (or believes they do). By addressing their losses and reducing the inherent resistance, it may be possible to move more quickly to solutions that mean that innovative approaches are not systematically obstructed. Speakers Rolf Stahel | Non-executive Chairman, EUSA Pharma Health BioDialogue II : Fragmentation to be released soon Speakers Johan Vanhemelrijck | Former Secretary General, EuropaBio Traceability along the entire supply chain is a key concern for those involved in the food industry. Recent food scares, where products have been found to be unsafe, have led consumers to demand full traceability in order to have confidence in the safety of foods that they have purchased. Consequently food traceability is a key component of any quality management system. Companies with effective traceability systems have tight control over their supply chains and are more productive and efficient. Essentially, such systems enable manufacturing without waste thereby adding more value. Food traceability systems facilitate the instant recall of defective products ensuring that the brand integrity of the products is not compromised. In essence, food traceability is a risk management tool that can protect the food organization from negative fallout if unfavourable situations arise. Traceability gives reassurance to the customer and gives confidence to the food industry. It should be welcomed by the food industry as another step forward in protecting the consumer. 16:30 - 18:00 | Plenary Industry Plenary Session: "Adapting to Biofuel" Speakers Steen Riisgaard | Chairman, EuropaBio; President and Chief Executive Officer, Novozymes Stephan B. Tanda | Member of the Board, DSM Shai Weiss | CEO, Virgin Fuels Special Nano Round Table Speakers Patrick Boisseau | Technological Research Division, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA), Grenoble & Coordinator, Nano2Life Network of Excellence Robert Doubleday | Department of Geography, University of Cambridge Julian Kinderlerer | Professor of Biotechnology & Society, Delft University of Technology & Professor of Intellectual Property Law, University of Cape Town; Member of the European Group on Ethics 18:00 - --:00 | Reception Cocktail reception & EuroBiO Party Thursday October 09 th, 2008 06:00 - 07:00 | Special Session Special Session: "Climate Change and the Pattern of Infectious Disease: The Butterfly Effect" Speakers Rita Colwell | Distinguished Professor, Centre for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Chairman of Canon US Life Sciences; Former Direct David Rogers | Professor of Ecology, TALA Research Group, Dept. of Zoology, Oxford University 10:30 - 12:00 | Plenary CEO Health Plenary Session Speakers Franz B. Humer | Chairman of the Roche Group Bernard Poussot | President and Chief Executive Officer, Wyeth Ellis Rubinstein | President and Chief Executive Officer, The New York Academy of Sciences; Former Editor, Science 12:00 - 13:30 | Plenary Grand Reporting Plenary Session Speakers Federico Mayor | Co-Chair of the UN High Level Group on the Alliance Civilizations; Former Director General, UNESCO Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson | President, Karolinska Institutet; Member of Karolinska Institutet’s Nobel Assembly