Big Pharma and Biotech Leaders to Converge in Shanghai, China at Asia Pharma R&D Leaders 2011 Summit to Discuss Novel R&D Approaches, Biopharma Innovations, and Licensing Opportunities in Asia

SHANGHAI, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- With closure and even divestiture of discovery sites in US and Europe in 2010, Big Pharma is under tremendous pressure to reduce costs and become leaner. Pharmaceutical companies are likely to continue to increase the percentage of their R&D work that is outsourced to Asia. This trend will continue to be driven by the pursuit of improving R&D cost efficiency as well as effectiveness. Beyond generating one-off savings, the emphasis will move to streamlining the outsourcing operating model, risk management, complexity management and lean process improvement. Doing more R&D smartly with less.

Earlier this year, Pfizer announced a new center in Wuhan has been slated to host Phase I-IV clinical trials and radiation biology. A similar plan was laid down by its counterpart Novartis, who plans to spend a billion dollars on its Chinese research facilities, and Novo Nordisk will expand its Beijing R&D center from 100 employees currently to 200 by 2015. To the opposite, Eli Lilly announced that it will close the Lilly Singapore Center for Drug Discovery at the end of 2010.

Why has big pharma invested heavily in China? What's hot in 2011 and beyond?

Find out the answer at Asia Pharma R&D Leaders 2011 - the premier pharma R&D event in China with Asian perspectives. The 2011 version of the Asia Pharma R&D event will bring in fresh perspectives and scientific advancements in popular therapeutic areas of cancers, CNS, and metabolic diseases, in which big pharma R&D are heavily investing in Asia. The new perspective will be discussed in parallel with pharma partnering models, licensing opportunities, risk management approaches, outsourcing strategies, IP management, and the latest pharma research advancement on sequencing, biomarkers, preclinical imaging, and data management, etc. necessary to optimize your pharma R&D cost efficiency and gain competitiveness in Asia.

At a time of "Pharma R&D: Thinking big, acting small", Asia Pharma R&D Leaders (APRDL) is back again to present another great event for pharma R&D industry leaders all over the world with special interests in pharma R&D opportunities in Asian emerging markets and with views to optimize their R&D capabilities in the region. Asia Pharma R&D Leaders 2011 (APRDL 2011) will provide you with the best practices you need to know for wining emerging markets in Asia. This event also provides excellent networking opportunities by way of a speed networking sessions where attendees will exchange details and make new contacts, as well as our contact system, which will allow participants to arrange meetings and email conference with attendees, speakers and the press.

An updated list of the 2011 summit's highlighted topics:

-- Latest advancements in Biomarker, Antibody, and Peptide discoveries

Gerd Maass Global Head of Biomarker and Pathway Analysis, Roche Pharma Research and Early Development

Davinder Gill PhD VP/Head Global Biotherapeutics Technologies Pfizer

-- New business models in 2011 and beyond for pharma R&D geared toward cost efficiency and ROI improvement

Steve Yang Vice President, Head of Asia R&D, Pfizer

Ruiping Dong MD&Ph.D. Vice President, Head of R&D Japan & China, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Xiaolin Zhang, Ph.D. vice president & head of AstraZeneca Innovation Center China (ICC)

Canwen Jiang, MD, PhD VP & Head of R&D Asia Genzyme Corporation

-- Asia market trends for heavily invested therapeutics areas: Oncology, CNS and Metabolic Diseases

Peter Hongaard Andersen, Executive Vice President for Research of H Lundbeck A/S

Jingsong Wang M.D. Director, Discovery Medicine & Clinical Pharmacology, Bristol-Myers Squibb

-- Effective partnership with top China CRO, biotech and academia

Lee E Babiss, Executive Vice President of Global Laboratory, PPD (Former President of Global R&D in Roche)

Jonathon D. Sedgwick, Managing Director & Chief Scientific Officer, Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery

Paul B Bolno MD, MBA Vice President, Worldwide Business Development Head of Asia GlaxoSmithKline

Jingkang Shen, Deputy Director Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica

Yizhun Zhu, PhD, Dean of School of Pharmacy and Director, Institute of Drug R&D Fudan University

Swami Subramaniam MD, PhD Director - Licensing and External Research (India and SE Asia), Merck and Co., Inc

Frank Grams, Executive Director Roche Pharma Partnering, Asia

Plus, the event sets up an effective platform for attendees to meet 1-on-1 with a variety of Asia's local CROs and leading clinical practitioners to discuss the specifics of outsourcing requirements.

An international audience consisting of senior-level pharma and biotech executives from the R&D, clinical development, business development, global market access, licensing, and regulatory affairs functions will be in attendance. For the full program and list of companies scheduled to attend, please visit the event website at www.aprdl.com.

SOURCE Global Leaders Institute