2013-03-12 08:34:22 - A panel discussion on “Partnership Angles: Venture Capitalists and Patient Groups” will be held at GTC’s Inaugural Orphan Drugs Research & Commercialization Conference, May 8 – 10, 2013 in Boston, MA.

Panelists will explore the notion of “investment” from two different perspectives: from the side of venture capitalists and their areas of interest in a market as small as orphan drugs, and from the point of view of patient groups who advocate for patients with rare diseases.

Though the means and motivations for each group to invest in the rare diseases space may seem to overlap very little, this discussion will connect the panelists to explore the potential for partnerships that will improve research and development of treatments for rare disease patients.

The panel features James McLaughlin, a venture associate at Third Rock Ventures; Matthew Patterson, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at OrbiMed; David Scheer, President of Scheer & Co.; and Shantanu Gaur, a member of

the Genetic Alliance council. Jayne Gershowitz, Vice President of Patient Advocacy & Public Policy at Amicus Therapeutics will moderate.

The panelists will join more than 25 other leaders in the field of rare disease research and orphan drug commercialization at the conference to discuss strategies to improve orphan drug research, pricing, access, and other key topics.

To view the agenda, click here.
To view the speaker list, click here.

This conference is part of the Drug Discovery Summit 2013, and will run parallel with three other exciting conferences:

3rd Epigenetics in Drug Discovery
6th Imaging in Drug Discovery and Development
7th Drug Design and Medicinal Chemistry

For more information, please visit www.gtcbio.com/orphandrugs.