BioValley Basel – Annual Event
Tuesday, 29 August 2023, 17.00
Location: Claraspital Auditorium, Kleinriehenstrasse 30, CH-4058 Basel
Agenda
Many approved treatments for rare diseases have come to public awareness as they typically offer substantial therapeutic benefit; they can be life-saving and improve patients’ quality of life. Public discussions typically focus on pricing and reimbursement challenges and general access to such breakthrough therapies.
We try to look beyond this: Research and development process leading to such orphan drugs also provides valuable insights into the natural history of the disease investigated and may even offer insights into causes and possible therapeutic options of far more common diseases. Investors are attracted to the rare disease/orphan drug sector in part because it offers certain regulatory incentives and typically has exceptional revenue growth rates.
Our panel consists of entrepreneurs with vast experience in the rare diseases sector constantly trying to find the sweet spot between addressable patient needs, validated therapeutic targets and regulatory pathways and clinical data sets.
Moderators: Dr. Matthias Staehelin and Nicholas Benedict, Board BioValley
Panelists:
Dr. Roberto Iacone
Roberto is CEO of Alentis Therapeutics and a physician-scientist and biotech entrepreneur who has advanced several assets to early clinical development. He has strong translational medicine and strategic experience across rare diseases, fibrosis, immunology, and oncology. For several years, he headed the rare disease research department at Roche.
Dr. Thomas Meier
Thomas is an internationally recognized scientist with track record in clinical research of neuromuscular and neuro-ophthalmology orphan diseases and has hands-on experience in the regulatory process of orphan disease product registration. As a dynamic life-science entrepreneur he currently serves on the Board of three biotech companies with orphan disease product pipelines and is managing partner of Viopas Venture Consulting.
Dr. Stefano Portolano
Stefano is Chief Executive Officer at AZAFAROS B.V. He is an accomplished biopharma executive with over 20 years of experience and a string of successes in launch and growth of orphan medicines and specialty therapeutics.
Dr. Luca Santarelli
Luca is Founder and CEO of VectivBio AG. He is entrepreneurial pharmaceutical executive with a background in fundamental research, R&D, business development and a successful track record in delivering innovative NMEs to early and late stages of development in a diverse array of diseases.
Kim Stratton
Kim is Chief Executive Officer at CENTOGENE, the essential life science partner for data-driven answers in rare and neurodegenerative diseases. She has more than 30 years’ global commercial expertise in the biopharmaceutical space with significant experience across multiple geographies. Previously, she served as CEO of Orphazyme, and was Head of International Commercial for Shire’s Specialty and Rare Disease portfolio.
Registration
BioValley Basel Association
Elisabethenstr. 15
4051 Basel, Switzerland