The Basel Life Science Week conference is an international event that brings together researchers, investors, and policy makers from industry, academia, and not-for-profit institutions. Each year, representatives from more than 45 countries participate in advancing our current understanding and applying knowledge to progress the life sciences fields.
One of the new themes for the 2016 program was developing standards for the implementation of Precision Medicine, with focus groups in bio-sample management, and digital data standardization and storage. Forums on human health (Aging and Infectious Diseases); advanced technologies for drug discovery (Stem Cells, Peptide Therapeutics, Protein Production, Drug Discovery Sciences, Next Generation Sequencing), and focused sessions on molecular disease mechanisms (GPCR, Kinases) took place once again.
The Digital Health & Care and the Translational Medicine Forums addressed how to advance clinical applications of discovery, which could synthesize the latest developments in these fields.
The MipTec Exhibition on Drug Discovery brought together over 100 vendors to showcase cutting edge technologies that could help advance R&D in the life sciences. In 2016, the Product Innovation Award was expanded to recognize outstanding achievement in the development of these technologies. The Innovation-Avenue, a platform for start-ups in life sciences, has been extended to enable more start-ups to participate. The program committee put together a dynamic evening for companies to network broadly with the larger community of researchers.
Richard Barker, GHPI Advisory Board Member and Precision Medicine Expert, presented at the conference. Afterwards, he had this to share:
“For the last few years I’ve been grappling with a mystery–why is there a persistent failure in turning our great advances in bioscience into lasting and affordable patient benefit?
My thinking and research has led me to write a book for OUP: Bioscience–Lost in Translation? How Precision Medicine Closes the Innovation Gap. My book gives offers one of the main ways this problem could be tackled.
This is, of course, far from being an academic curiosity–it’s a vital imperative if we are to use the growing list of precision medicine tools to advance the cause of increasing healthy lifespan in the face of economic pressure on our health systems. I’m now working on this topic with governments and NGOs around the world.”
The book has gained positive feedback from leaders in the field on both sides of the Atlantic. You can find it here:
OUP (https://global.oup.com/
or
