The explosion of healthcare spending affects everybody who pay taxes to support Medicare and Medicaid. It affects anyone who has a job that comes with healthcare benefits, which keep getting more expensive. It affects anybody who ever has to see a doctor.
No doubt, this issue affects everybody. But people in the biotech industry have more skin in this game than almost anybody else. Companies that are developing drugs, diagnostics and devices today need to think about how they are going to make a profit in the future when insurers can’t, or won’t, pay virtually unlimited prices for innovative new products.
The challenges are daunting, and fortunately, we have some very forward-thinking people here in the West Coast biotech industry who are working on navigating the new reality. So I’m happy to have organized our next big Xconomy Seattle event on this theme — “Biotech in the Belt-Tightening Era.”
This event will be held the afternoon of April 9 at Northeastern University’s new Seattle offices at 401 Terry Avenue North. The program will consist mainly of a series of 1-on-1, 20-minute interviews that I’ll conduct with prominent entrepreneurs and investors who are planning ways to prosper in the cost-contained environment of tomorrow.
Here’s how you can expect the afternoon to flow:
1 pm. Registration/Networking
2 pm. Welcoming remarks. Northeastern University and Xconomy
2:05 pm. Scott Ramsey. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
2:35 pm. Mitch Gold, Alpine Biosciences
2:55 pm. Clay Siegall, Seattle Genetics
3:15 pm. Chad Robins, Adaptive Biotechnologies
3:35 pm Networking break
4:05 pm. Mark Litton, Alder Biopharmaceuticals
4:25 pm. Al Luderer, Integrated Diagnostics
4:45 pm. Kim Popovits, Genomic Health
5:05 pm Risa Stack, GE healthymagination & Bob Nelsen, Arch Venture Partners
5:30 pm Networking reception
6:30 pm END
This is a rare opportunity to bring together some major West Coast thought leaders who don’t appear often at events in Seattle, particularly Kim Popovits of Genomic Health and Risa Stack of GE. Plus, today is the last day to get tickets at the Early Bird discount rate. So snap up a few of those tickets, tell a friend, and mark your calendar for a day that will bring people and ideas together in our community. I’ll look forward to seeing many readers there on April 9.
