Grand Rounds preview: Eyes on the target

BioCentury’s inaugural R&D meeting aims to help innovators, investors create a new network linking academic discovery, translation

Grand Rounds is an R&D meeting that represents BioCentury’s latest initiative to create new networks linking innovators and investors, BioCentury co-founder, President and CEO David Flores said on a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast previewing the new conference. The meeting, on Sept. 9-11 in Nashville, brings together investors, biopharma executives and translational academics and focuses on whether biotech can write a more successful playbook for translating from target to product.

“Everyone’s goal is to be the best in the world, and that requires, we think, cross-border collaboration and cooperation, again without exception between institutions, across state lines, across national boundaries — all of this requires building relationships and networks,” said Flores, adding that one of BioCentury’s missions is to help build those networks.

Flores said discussion at the conference will focus on a key hurdle facing life sciences, translation.

“Our whole industry has its own unmet need — the roadblocks that slow the translation of innovation into new medicines,” said Flores.

Abby Trotter, executive director of Life Science Tennessee, joins Flores, podcast host Jeff Cranmer and Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn to discuss the biotech ecosystem of the state, including research institutes Meharry Medical College, St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital and Vanderbilt University. More than 40 posters will be presented at the conference, including several from labs across the state.

Paul Peter Tak, president & CEO of Candel Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:CADL) and a veteran of GSK plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK), previews the panel that he will moderate, “Immunity and Inflammation inflection point: What determines the direction from here?” He also discusses with Fishburn the evolution of drug development in the immunology space.

And Guang Yang, a partner at McKinsey & Company, previews the exclusive conference report — “Reimagining translation: how to unlock the next wave of breakthrough treatments” — that will form the basis of McKinsey’s presentation at Grand Rounds.

There is still time to register for BioCentury Grand Rounds, which will take place Sept. 9-11 in Nashville. Network, partner and debate key bottlenecks in translation. See the conference website for more information.