First wave of speakers announced for Convergence Forum Chatham, 2012

We're excited to reveal some of the speakers who'll be joining us this May for the Convergence Forum in Chatham, Mass. They are:

· Julian Adams, PhD, President of Research & Development, Infinity Pharmaceuticals
· John Brooks III, CEO, Joslin Diabetes Center
· Michelle Dipp, MD, PhD, CEO, OvaScience; Partner, Longwood Fund
· Leonard Guarente, PhD, Novartis Professor of Biology, MIT
· Jose-Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos, PhD, SVP BioTherapeutics Research & Development, Pfizer
· Steven Holtzman, EVP of Corporate Development, Biogen Idec
· Sridhar Iyengar, PhD, Chief Technology Officer, AgaMatrix
· Reid Leonard, PhD, Managing Director, Merck Research Venture Fund
· Mark Levin, Partner, Third Rock Ventures
· Anmol Madan, PhD, Founder, Ginger.io
· David Meeker, CEO, Genzyme
· David Schafran, CEO, EyeNetra
· Philip Vickers, PhD, SVP of Research & Development, Shire Human Genetic Therapies

We hope you'll be there, too, for this ninth annual gathering of life sciences leaders.

Convergence Forum 2011: Speakers so far

We're still interested in hearing your ideas for speakers and topics that we ought to include in the agenda for the 2011 Convergence Forum (May 19-21st at the Chatham Bars Inn).

We're especially looking for demonstrations of newly-launched (or prototype) consumer devices, software, or technologies of interest to participants in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and medical device industries... so ping me at scott@nantucketconference.com if you've seen anything especially cool lately.

Here's who's on the agenda thus far:

- Katrine Bosley, CEO, Avila Therapeutics
- Michael Cima, PhD, Professor, MIT; Co-Founder, T2 Biosystems
- Michelle Dipp, MD, PhD, Senior Vice President, GSK & Partner, Longwood Founders Fund
- Sandy Fenwick, President, Children’s Hospital Boston
- Patrick Gilligan, SVP, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mass.
- Tillman Gerngross, PhD, Founder, Adimab and GlycoFi
- Tuan Ha-Ngoc, CEO, AVEO Pharmaceuticals
- Tom Hughes, PhD, CEO, Zafgen
- Kenneth Kaitin, PhD, Director, Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development

- Devorah Klein, Principal, Continuum
- John Maraganore, PhD, CEO, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
- John Mendlein, PhD, Chairman, Fate Therapeutics and aTyr Pharma
- Tom McCourt, Chief Commercial Officer and Brian Cali, PhD, VP/Program Management, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals
- Greg Perry, CFO, ImmunoGen
- Todd Zion, PhD, CEO, SmartCells
- Daphne Zohar, Founder, PureTech Ventures

Audio: Convergence Forum West

Last Friday, we held the second Convergence Forum West event at the Hotel Vitale on the San Francisco waterfront. We were joined by an impressive bunch of participants and speakers from the worlds of biotech, medical devices, venture capital, pharma, and e-healthcare.

Just wanted to share some audio from a few of the sessions, all in MP3 format so you can download them and listen on your device of choice. Just click the title of each session to listen.

- Funding & Advancing Truly Innovative Medicines: Surmounting the Challenges

Speakers:
Paul Hastings, CEO, OncoMed Pharmaceuticals

David Perry, CEO, Anacor Pharmaceuticals
Bryan Roberts PhD, Partner, Venrock

Moderator:
John Mendlein PhD, Executive Chairman, Fate Therapeutics and aTyr

- What Does It Mean for Drug Developers and the Health Care System When Patients Start Networking Online?

Speaker:
James Heywood, Co-Founder, PatientsLikeMe

Interviewer:
Steven Dickman, CEO, CBT Advisors

- Fireside Chat: Rethinking the Production of Practically Everything Via Industrial Biology

Speaker: Nathaniel David, Venture Partner, Arch Venture Partners; Co-Founder, Sapphire Energy, Kilimanjaro Energy, Achaogen, Kythera Biopharmaceuticals

Interviewer:
David Ewing Duncan, Director, Center for Life Science Policy, UC/Berkeley; Author, "Experimental Man"

- Fireside Chat: The Implications of Next-Wave Innovation in Sequencing and Computation

Speakers:
Iya Khalil PhD, Co-Founder, Gene Network Sciences
Eric Schadt PhD, CSO, Pacific Biosciences

Interviewer:
David Ewing Duncan, Director, Center for Life Science Policy, UC/Berkeley; Author, "Experimental Man"

- Opportunities and Challenges in Diagnostics: Implications for Health and Healthcare Innovations

Speakers:
Bhairavi Parikh PhD, CEO, Cellscape Corporation
Una Ryan PhD, CEO, Diagnostics for All
Sal Salamone PhD, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer, Saladax Biomedical, Inc.
Mickey Urdea PhD, CEO and Chairman, Tethys Bioscience, Inc.

Moderator:
Stacy Feld, Director, Physic Ventures

Here's Luke Timmerman's Xconomy write-up of the day's first panel. And here are the Twitter messages related to Convergence Forum West.