BioVision 2011's program is organized around three conference tracks:
- "Decision-makers' Perspectives ": 6 plenary sessions will focus on major scientific/societal issues in healthcare, the environment and nutrition with a panel of international decision-makers: Zhu Chen (Minister of Healthcare, People's Republic of China), Professor Michel Kazatchkine (Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria), Chris Viehbacher (CEO, sanofi- aventis), Alain Mérieux (President, Institut Mérieux), Unni Karunakara (President, International Council of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières), Professor Ada Yonath, (winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), François Danel (Chief Executive, Action Contre la Faim), Elias Zerhouni (former Director of the NIH and a Senior Fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), Paul Stoffels (Head of R&D, Janssen), José Ángel Córdova Villalobos (Health Minister, Mexico) and many others.
- "Scientific Advances" will tackle 12 themes through 36 twenty-minute talks and 12 round tables on healthcare, the environment and nutrition. Speakers such as Philip Campbell (Editor-in-Chief, Nature), Professor Pierre-Marie Lledo (Institute Pasteur), Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Lisbeth Shepherd (Executive Director, Green City Force), Jason Clay (Vice President, WWF), Professor Alain Fischer (INSERM) and Peter Piot (former Executive Director, UNAIDS) will present their ideas.
- "Business in Science": this track is new for 2011. Twenty-five industry experts will address key issues in the ongoing transformation of the life science business model: Hatem el Gabal (Health Minister, Egypt), John A. Thomson (Vice President, Vertex Pharmaceuticals), Thomas Lönngren (Executive Director, European Medicines Agency), Philippe Archinard (CEO, Transgene), Vincent Schachter (Vice President R&D, Total), Michel Goldman (Executive Director, Innovative Medicines Initiative), Antonio Tajani (European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship) and others.
The major topics in BioVision 2011
- Scientific advances in fields such as neuroscience, infectious disease, cancer and predictive medicine.
A few examples of session titles: "From systems biology to personalized medicine"; “How to deal with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases?”; "Turn Green into Gold"; "Health, nutrition and bacteria".
- Societal issues
Topics will include "Health, a right for all human beings, at any price?"; "Synthetic biology: reconstructing life?"; " Would Pasteur and Fleming have survived the precautionary principle? "; "Cell therapy: scientific, therapeutic and ethical challenges ".
- Economic issues, around the core theme "The end of the traditional life science industry model:
What next?”. Session titles include "How to solve R&D’s challenge with Open collaborative Innovation?"; "How can technology innovation transform healthcare delivery?" and "How to address the growing challenge of chronic diseases in emerging countries".
New for BioVision 2011:
- creation of a prestigious Scientific committee, which has selected the event's scientific themes.
- refocusing of the program on strong scientific themes and a new "Business in Science" track aimed at reinforcing the business community's participation in BioVision.
- a web-based tool for attendees, to promote pre-event networking.
- a new network of local, national and international partners.
- The "BioVision Fringe": around 15 related events organized by BioVision partners.
BioVision.nxt: the new generation of scientists
BioVision.nxt is a funding program which will enables a hundred life science PhD students and post-docs (mainly from developing countries) to attend BioVision.
These attendees will also have special access to the event's speakers.
About BioVision
For over 10 years, BioVision has been stimulating innovative, high-level debate with all the key stakeholders (industry, the political sphere, patient associations, etc.) on the societal implications of scientific progress. Over three days, the leading decision-makers and experts in life science will review major scientific advances in healthcare, nutrition and the environment. They will catalyze discussion between stakeholders (who rarely have the opportunity to talk to each other) on the impact of these scientific and industrial innovations on society. BioVision was created in 1999 on the initiative of the late Raymond Barre (a former French Prime Minister and Vice Chairman of the European Commission) and François Gros (Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences). BioVision receives support from major international organizations, the European Commission, local councils (Lyons City Council, The Lyons Metropolitan Area Council, the Rhône County Council and the Rhône-Alpes Regional Council) and associations, NGOs and companies concerned by issues in life science.
For more information, please visit www.biovision.org
Press contacts: Alize PR
Caroline Carmagnol caroline@alizerp.com Tel.: +33 (0)6 64 18 99 59 Nathalie Ravier nathalie@alizerp.com Tel.: +33 (0)1 42 68 86 42
