ARCHIVE
LONDON
REGENERATIVE MEDICINE NETWORK MEETING - Thursday 20th July
2006
The next monthly meeting of the London
Regenerative Medicine Network will be held in the evening
of Thursday 20th July at King's College London, Guy's
Hospital Campus at London Bridge, London SE1
(Harris Lecture Theatre, Hodgkin
Building, Guy's Hospital Campus at London Bridge, London
SE1). The
meeting will focus on three key areas:
1] Building a
successful stem cell business - Linda Powers - Toucan
Capital, Bethesda, USA
2] Taking great stem cell science from the lab, through the
clinic and onto to market - Dr. Gareth Roberts - NovaThera
Ltd.
3] Overcoming immuno-rejection - an essential element if
embryonic stem cells are to benefit patients - Prof. Robert
Lechler - King's College London
SPEAKERS
Linda F. Powers -
Co-founder and Managing Director of Toucan Capital, a U.S. venture
capital fund based in Bethesda, MD,
USA
Linda has more than 25 years of experience in seed and
early stage venture capital investing, corporate mergers
and acquisitions, finance and restructurings, and
public-private partnerships. Her company, Toucan
Capital is one of the few U.S. venture funds investing in
seed and early (pre-clinical) stage life science companies,
and in pioneering novel technologies and is one the largest
investors in stem cell technologies in the U.S.A. for more
than five years. Toucan currently has ten stem cell
companies, and two other cell based companies in its
portfolio. Toucan’s stem cell portfolio
companies are active in the U.S, China, India and Europe.
TALK: “Building a successful stem cell business
model” - In the world of stem cells, most of the
attention to date has tended to focus on the research, its
progress and related ethical issues. More attention is
needed on the “translation” or
commercialisation of these research results - the
development of viable business models for production,
pricing, roll-out and delivery to patients of specific stem
cell products for specific diseases and conditions.
Linda will discuss investor perspectives and the current
business landscape for stem cell commercialisation, lessons
learned from past stem cell company failures, and emerging
views on potentially viable stem cell business
models.
Dr. Gareth Roberts -
CEO, NovaThera Ltd, Cambridge,
UK
Gareth has a background as an Imperial College academic who
joined industry as a Group Director of research for
SmithKline Beecham. On completing an MBA, Gareth became an
entrepreneur in the biotechnology/high tech sector. Since
1998, Gareth has co-founded five biotechnology companies
active in the area of pharmacogenetics (GENOSTIC and SCIONA
now a US corporation), bioinformatics/proteomics (PROTEOM)
medical devices (ISOHELIX) and stem cell biology
(NOVATHERA). These companies have raised over £25 million
in venture financing. In addition, Gareth has extensive
knowledge of intellectual property issues and the
challenges of developing technology centered businesses in
USA, Japan and Europe as well as producing over 150
articles in refereed journals.
TALK: “Every breath you take - moves lung cells
closer to market” - In the UK, respiratory disease
costs the NHS more than any other disease area. The
economic cost of production losses is estimated at £3B per
year and the Department of Social Security stated in 2000
that 28 million working days were lost p.a. due to
respiratory related illnesses. Lung damage causes
significant mortality and disability. Whilst the lung is
capable of repairing itself, often the patients capability
for repair are overwhelmed by the acute pathology. There is
therefore considerable interest in using regenerative
medicine approaches to aid lung repair. Stem cells and
material scaffolds will be inserted into the lung to
regenerate lung tissue. Ultimately simple artificial
“lungs” will be grown to replace those
irreparably damaged giving hope and life to those whose
current outlook is a short, painful, restrictive few years.
However, this is a medium to long term prospect. One way to
gain a rapid improvement in lung therapy and also smooth
the way for future development of regenerative therapies
would be to couple the existing successful lung assist
devices to cellular approaches to create novel Bio-Hybrid
devices which are capable of being developed rapidly and
delivering significant clinical utility.
Prof. Robert Lechler -
Vice Principal, King’s College
London
Robert qualified in medicine in Manchester in 1975,
thereafter, he undertook four years of junior hospital
doctor training in general medicine and nephrology before
embarking on a PhD in transplantation immunology at the
Royal Postgraduate Medical School. Following the PhD, he
returned to full-time clinical work for two years and
completed his scientific training at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, U.S.A. He returned
to the UK to a Senior Lecturer Post at the Royal
Postgraduate Medical School in 1986 and became Head of the
Department of Immunology in 1994. Robert became Dean of
Campus at Imperial College Faculty of Medicine in 2001 and
Head of the Division of Medicine in 2003 and was Head of
the School of Medicine at Guy’s, King’s College
and St Thomas’ Hospitals at King’s College
London from September 2004 to September 2005. He is
currently Vice Principal (Health) at King’s College
London.
TALK: "Principles of transplantation tolerance: relevance
to regenerative medicine" - Before human embryonic stem
cells can be turned into therapies, there are a number of
scientific and technical problems that must first be
overcome. One of the most pressing is that cells and organs
grown from embryonic stem cells will be probably rejected
by the patient's immune system just like a donor organ,
unless the patient takes life-long immuno-suppression
medication. Unfortunately such medication is not without
significant side-effects. Thus a key goal in clinical
transplantation of human embryonic stem cells is the
induction of donor-specific tolerance to minimise the
morbidity and mortality associated with long-term
immunosuppression. Robert, a world expert on transplant
immunology, has very kindly offered to give a "layman's
guide" to this crucial aspect of stem cell therapy.
To
researve a place, please just email the Network
Secretary: secretary@regenmednetwork.com
DETAILS
This meeting is free of charge to everyone through the
generous financial support of our principle sponsors;
GlaxoSmithKline and the Guy's, King's & St Thomas'
Annual Fund, plus invaluable support from the Department of
Biochemical Engineering, UCL and the the Wolfson Centre for
Age-Related Diseases, KCL.
PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO LECTURE THEATRE SEATING CAPACITY +
CATERING ARRANGEMENTS, IF YOU WISH TO ATTEND THIS EVENT YOU
MUST REPLY AS REQUESTED, OTHERWISE UNFORTUNATELY YOU WILL
NOT BE ABLE TO GAIN ADMISSION. Seat allocation is on a
first come first served basis. If you wish to attend, all
that is required, is to email the Secretary -
secretary@regenmednetwork.com
and type "Please add me to
the guest list - Thank you" or something similar!!!
AGENDA
18.00 - Registration over tea and coffee
18.30 - Welcome - Dr. Chris Mason (UCL) -
Co-organiser of the Network
18.35 - "Every
breath you take - moves lung cells closer to
market" -
Dr. Gareth
Roberts - CEO, NovaThera Ltd, Cambridge,
UK
19.00 - Q+A Session
19.10 - "Building
a successful stem cell business model"
- Linda Powers -
Co-founder and Managing Director, Toucan Capital, Bethesda,
MD, USA
19.35 - Q+A Session
19.45 - "Principles of transplantation
tolerance: relevance to regenerative medicine"
- Prof. Robert Lechler -
Vice Principal, King’s College
London
20.10 - Q+A Session
20.20 - Closing remarks - Dr. Stephen Minger
(King's) - Co-organiser of the Network
20.30 - 22.00 - Networking reception - enjoy a glass of
wine or two in the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases,
KCL
Please only respond if you can definitely make the meeting.
Replies must go to - secretary@regenmednetwork.com
We look
forward to seeing everyone on Thursday 20th July for our
last meeting before the summer break!
Stephen Minger + Chris Mason
Co-organisers, London Regenerative Medicine Network.
www.regenmednetwork.com
PRINCIPLE
SPONSORS
Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Annual
Fund
London
Regenerative Medicine Network
"Bringing the regenerative medicine, stem cell and tissue
engineering community together..."