Our Thoughts from the Bio Innovation Leaders Summit 2019 in Berlin

Sadly, Bio Innovation is over for another year. But from our perspective, the event just keeps getting better and better!

We feel this is testament to both the effort of the GBX summit team, especially Patrick Basanez for his boundless enthusiasm (which is needed prior to that first coffee of the morning), and Johan for his dedication in getting us connected to people which resulted in some great conversations.

Of course, no event is great without great speakers.

The opening session from Jean-Pierre Latere from Celyad certainly set the standard. Jean-Pierre gave an insightful overview of the competitive and dynamic landscape of adaptive cell therapies and the real potential for NKG2D in combination with CAR-T cells as potential cancer therapies and the encouraging results from their multi-centric trial approach. A great start to Day 1.

The highlight of Day 2 was Dorothee Ambrosius’ talk discussing the changing landscape of drug discovery in face of more complex challenges. The requirement for more refined treatments has led to a rising trend of new biologic products, which have made up 11 of the top 20 most recent drugs to market. With new oncology expected to be the biggest growth area over the coming years, this is a trend we expect to see continue.

Exciting therapies, including oncolytic viruses, are changing the way companies approach drug development and challenging current thinking about the most efficient ways to bring novel therapies to market.

With new modalities targeting more in-depth aspects of immuno-oncology and stretching into new areas, the need to be able to harness past and current data is ever-increasing – and having a solid backbone of data will enable better predictions as to how these therapies will re-act as they move towards clinical trials.

Over two days, the Bio Innovation Summit enhanced its reputation as a fantastic networking and collaborating event for current and future leaders of the industry, with everyone working towards furthering innovation, enhancing knowledge and creating new business opportunities.

We’re already looking forward to the 2020 Summit!

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