Come to BIOCOM DeviceFest 2009 on May 7
Innovation. Adversity. The future. All things those in the life sciences know well. In these times, maybe we know some of them too well. BIOCOM will bridge all three at its 4th Annual Devicefest on May 7, 2009. And have some really neat stuff to look at, too.
This day long conference will include thought provoking panel discussions. In "Overcoming Adversity", panelists from CardioDynamics, Second Sight, Edwards Lifesciences and DexCom will discuss their personal experiences in overcoming adversity such as challenges from engineering and design, to internal disagreements, to shepherding a product to approval. A respected panel of venture capitalists representing firms like Fjord Ventures, Frazier Healthcare, Versant and Finistere Ventures will talk about what is driving them, and then we will close the day with a panel on the future of innovation, with panelists from Zimmer Dental, Nanovis, Qualcomm and UC Irvine who are truly on the leading edge of technology.
The event will also feature the DeviceFest exhibition, an exciting roundup of the hottest new medical devices currently on the market or nearing commercialization. This venue is an opportunity for medical device companies to showcase one or more of their devices in a tradeshow setting to an audience of 150+ life science and medical device individuals, venture capitalists, media and more.
A highlight of the event is always the awards ceremony. Awards will be given to participating companies for the following categories:
“I Would Invest In This”
“Why Didn’t I Think of That”
“Life Changing” Award
“The Far Out” Award
WHEN
Thursday, May 7, 2009
7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
WHERE
Fairmont Newport Beach
4500 MacArthur Blvd.Newport Beach, California 92660
HOW
Registration to attend the conference is $100.00 for members and $150.00 for non members. To register click here.
To exhibit, the cost is $150.00 (includes two complimentary passes to DeviceFest). The deadline to register for exhibiting companies is April 30th, 2009. For more questions or to request an application to exhibit, please contact Michelle Wright at 858-455-0300 x116 or mwright@biocom.org
Spotlight on Parkinson’s disease
With this issue of the Biocommunique, BIOCOM is launching a recurring feature to take a monthly look at drugs and devices in development to treat that disease from member companies. Following our 2009 "Art of Research" Calendar, each month, we'll look at a new disease and our companies efforts in it.
For our April disease spotlight, we'll take a look at companies with products and devices in development to treat Parkinson’s disease. There are more than 25 companies in Southern California addressing this disease. Parkinson's Disease or "shaking palsy" is a brain disorder that causes muscle tremor, stiffness, and weakness. In the United States, approximately 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, joining the 1.5 million Americans who currently have the disease.
The following companies responded to our request for summaries of their Parkinson’s disease efforts. Is your company not on the list? Please email Michelle Wright and we'll update you on our site.
Southern California life science companies working in neurology diseases like Parkinson's include:
Acadia Pharmaceuticals, American Life Science Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Arena Pharmaceuticals, aTyr Pharma, Behavioral Pharma, Biogen Idec, BioMedica Inc., BrainCells Inc, Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Cardium Therapeutics, Ceregen, Cortex Pharmaceuticals, CytRx, Dart Neuroscience, Helicon Therapeutics, Ichor Medical Systems, Ista Pharmaceuticals, Kalypsys, Kinexis Inc., MediciNova, Ocera Therapeutics, Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Sequenom and Somaxon Pharmaceuticals.
Next month's spotlight will be on companies working to combat diseases like cystic fibrosis. Is your company on the list? Please contact Michelle Wright with any questions or to make sure your company is on the list.
Acadia Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company utilizing innovative technology to fuel drug discovery and clinical development of novel treatments for central nervous system disorders. Our most advanced product candidate is pimavanserin, currently in Phase III development for the treatment of Parkinson's disease psychosis.
American Life Science Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is a privately held company based in San Diego, California, focused on the discovery and development of new drugs to treat neurological conditions.
Amgen is a leading human therapeutics company in the biotechnology industry. For more than 25 years, the company has tapped the power of scientific discovery and innovation to advance the practice of medicine.
Arena Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering and developing innovative therapies offering significant medical advances and new options for patients. We are focused on discovering, developing and commercializing oral drugs in four major therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, central nervous system, inflammatory and metabolic diseases.
aTyr Pharma discovers and develops protein therapeutics for human diseases. We are building a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio across a family of proteins and their biologically active components. These biologics have therapeutic potential across a wide range of disease areas including vascular, inflammation, oncology, metabolic, neurologic and dermatologic disorders.
Behavioral Pharma is a privately owned, ‘customer centric’ contract research organization located in San Diego, California. With a global, “cutting edge,” scientific team, Behavioral Pharma delivers reliable, in vivo pre-clinical testing services dedicated to behavioral neuroscience research.
Biogen Idec creates new standards of care in therapeutic areas with high unmet medical needs. Founded in 1978, Biogen Idec is a global leader in the discovery, development, manufacturing and commercialization of innovative therapies. The company has 20 programs in Phase 2 trials and beyond. This includes BIIB-14, a once-daily oral compound currently in development for the treatment of early and late-stage Parkinson's disease.
BioMedica Inc, located in San Diego, California, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxford BioMedica plc (LSE: OXB), a UK based biotechnology company specializing in the development of novel gene-based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and other disorders with major unmet clinical needs.
ProSavin is Oxford BioMedica's gene-based therapy for Parkinson's disease that has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of this chronic neurodegenerative disorder.
BrainCells Inc. (BCI) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of breakthrough small molecule therapeutics for diseases of the central nervous system (CNS).
Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on in-licensing, developing and commercializing proprietary product candidates principally for use in the hospital setting.
Cardium Therapeutics is a medical technology company primarily focused on the development and commercialization of novel biologic therapeutics and medical devices for cardiovascular and ischemic disease.
Ceregene, Inc. is a private, San Diego-based biotechnology company focused on the treatment of major neurodegenerative disorders using the delivery of nervous system growth factors. Ceregene is currently evaluating its clinical development plan for CERE-120 (AAV-neurturin), which has a goal of restoring lost motor function and protecting against further loss of function, thus potentially significantly improving quality of life in Parkinson's patients.
Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel small molecule drugs called AMPAKINE molecules targeted towards human central nervous system diseases.
CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ: CYTR), is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of high-value human therapeutics. In addition to its drug development pipeline, the Company owns and operates a research and development facility in San Diego dedicated to the discovery of new drug candidates based on the company's small molecule chaperone regulation technology.
Dart NeuroScience LLC (DNS) is a private company formed to discover new technologies and therapeutics to help maximize cognitive vitality throughout life.
Helicon Therapeutics, is a privately held company formed to discover therapeutics to treat disorders of cognition through an understanding of the genetic basis of long-term memory formation.
Ichor is dedicated to the clinical application and commercialization of electroporation technology for the delivery of DNA drugs and vaccines to treat and prevent debilitating or life threatening diseases.
ISTA Pharmaceuticals is the fastest growing U.S. branded ophthalmic pharmaceutical company, having recently become the fifth largest in the U.S. market. The company’s products and product candidates addressing the $5.1 billion U.S. prescription ophthalmic industry include therapies for inflammation, ocular pain, glaucoma, allergy, and dry eye.
Kalypsys is a San Diego based biopharmaceutical company with clinical stage pharmaceutical products. Central to our pipeline expansion is epiK - a proprietary and highly automated small molecule drug discovery platform.
Kinexis, Inc.is a life science R&D company targeting soluble oligomeric conformations of pathologic amyloid proteins involved in multiple neurodegenerative and non-CNS diseases.
MediciNova, Inc. is a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on acquiring and developing novel, small-molecule therapeutics for the treatment ofdiseases with unmet need with a specific focus on the U.S. market.
Ocera Therapeutics, Inc. is a San Diego based, privately held biopharmaceutical company founded in January 2005 by Dr. Eckard Weber and Dr. Laurent Fischer. Ocera focuses on the development of novel therapeutics in the areas of liver and gastrointestinal diseases.
Pacira is passionate about delivering and improving patient care. We focus our clinical and commercial development activities by understanding the needs of the acute care market. DepoFoam is a proprietary, proven drug delivery technology platform that provides highly versatile, sustained-release delivery of medications.
Sequenom is committed to providing the best genetic analysis products that translate genomic science into superior solutions for biomedical research, agricultural applications, molecular medicine and non-invasive prenatal diagnostics research, and potentially, clinical utility.
Somaxon is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the in-licensing and development of proprietary product candidates for the treatment of diseases and disorders in the fields of psychiatry and neurology.