| BIOSPAIN 2018

FINANCE & INVESTMENT PROGRAM - Italica Auditorium

Finance your innovation through non-dilutive funding

With the collaboration of:

Topics to be discussed: • What can CDTI do for R&D activities for biotechnology companies? • Supporting internationalization of biotech companies through technological cooperation. • Opportunities for biotechnology in Horizon 2020 - Horizon Europe. • Non-dilutive funding from US Federal Agencies and Private Foundations.

Chairperson:

Cecilia Hernández
Head of Department -Health, Bioeconomy, Climate & Natural Resources.
CDTI -Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (Spain)

Physicist at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. CSIC Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología de Polimeros. Production and R&D departments at Private Company Joined CDTI in 1991. Different responsibilities : Spanish representative to several European Union Framework R&D Programmes as well as to the European Space Agency.

Speakers:

"NIH/DOD Non-Dilutive Funding Opportunities - Non-US Applicants Welcome"

Jonathan Adalist
Head of Business Development
Freemind Group (USA)

Jonathan Adalist, Head of Business Development at FreeMind, has been with the firm since 2014 and has comprehensive experience and an extensive understanding of the non-dilutive funding landscape in the US. Before joining FreeMind, Jonathan held various marketing and sales positions having done business in the US, Central and South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Jonathan holds a B.Sc. in Biology and an M.Sc. in Biotechnology and Molecular Biology from Tel-Aviv University.

“CDTI RTDI (Research, Technology Development and Innovation) funding Instruments”

Juan Luis Romera
Management, promotion & expert advice of R+D +i projects – Health. Department of Health, Bioeconomy, Climate and Natural Resources
CDTI -Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (Spain)

Juan Luis has more than 20 years of work experience, the last 12 years at CDTI. Before joining CDTI, Juan Luis has worked in different position: Toledo Hospital (Clinical Analysis Doctor (Practitioner)), in the pharmaceutical industry (as scientist at Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development) and as researcher at University of Granada. Juan Luis holds a PhD in Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry from University of Granada.

"Opportunities for Biotechnology in Horizon 2020"

Marta Gómez
Spanish Representative in Horizon 2020 – Societal Challenge 1 Health, demographic change and wellbeing and in the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
CDTI -Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (Spain)

Biologist with a Master in Biotechnology (Business Administration for Biotech Companies). She has been working since 2003 for the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), a public company within the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; the Business Innovation Financing Agency. Marta’s work is fully dedicated to Horizon 2020 in the EU Programmes Division, being the Spanish Representative in Horizon 2020–Societal Challenge 1 Health, demographic change & wellbeing & in the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), where she is the elected vice chair of the States Representatives Group since 2015.

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“Regional public support for R & D in Andalusia”

José A. Pascual Sánchez
Head of Innovation and Programmes Unit
The Innovation and Development Agency of Andalusia (IDEA Agency)

Start-ups presentations

11:00 - 12:00

11:00 - Ability Pharmaceuticals (Spain)
11:10 - Avivagen (Canada)
11:20 - Biohope (Spain)
11:30 - Bioquochem (Spain)
11:40 - Cristal Pharmaceuticals (Netherlands)
11:50 - Cannabiotics: exploring the antitumor effect of cannabinoids in hematologic malignancies - Institute of Biomedicine of Seville/University Hospital Virgen del Rocio(Spain)

Welcome remarks & institutional inauguration Italica Auditorium

12:00 - 13:00

Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:00

Early Stage Financing & impact investment in biotechnology

14:15 - 15:15

Sponsored by:

The number of financing agreements and M&A in the early stages is increasing in the life sciences. Investing early is risky, but it also gives you the opportunity to build the asset in a very direct way.

Chairwoman:

“Keys to invest in early stage biopharma”

Clara Campàs Moya

Partner & co-founder
Asabys Partners (Spain)

Dr. Clara Campàs-Moya is partner and co-founder at the recently created venture capital firm ASABYS Partners (Barcelona). Formerly, she served as Strategy & Development Director at Kern Pharma (2014-2018) and as a managing director at Advancell. Dr. Campàs has served as a member of the Investment Committee of the venture capital firm HealthEquity, as well as vice-president of CataloniaBIO, and acts as a mentor in several programs such as d-Health MOEBIO, Caixaimpulse and the BCN Mentoring Program. Dr. Campàs-Moya is the co-author of the Acadesine patent (the first Spanish patent from a public University reaching clinical trials successfully). Up to 2006 Dr. Campàs-Moya was a researcher engaged in the development of new therapies in cancer. Dr. Campàs-Moya has published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals as well the medical literature. She received her Doctorate in Pharmacy in 2004 and a Master’s in Pharmacy from the University of Barcelona in 1999.

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Speakers:

“Investing in ‘build’ vs. ‘growth”

Marco Boorsma
General Partner
Forbion Capital (The Netherlands)

Marco is General Partner at Forbion and has a key role in the investment team with focus on biopharma and a special interest to bring his background in molecular biology, operational and business development experience from both small and large businesses to the portfolio. He currently serves on the boards of several of Forbion portfolio companies, and was instrumental in starting-up, investing and the sale of recent portfolio companies such as NorthSea, Prexton, Dezima and Akarna.

“Funding Biotech companies in the early stages: Equity crowdfunding and co-investment with business angels and VCs”

Daniel Oliver

Director
Capital Cell (Spain)

Biology Degree, Universitat de Barcelona, specializing in Biomedical Sciences. Founder and CEO, Capital Cell (Europe’s 1st Life Sciences investment platform). President, Spanish Crowdfunding Association, between July 2014 and September 2016. Member of the European Stakeholders Forum. Advisor to the European Commission on alternative financing legislation since January 2015. Founding member and Board of Directors, European Equity Crowdfunding Association. Professor of entrepreneurship and business financing in Barcelona Activa.

“Public Funding in Andalusia”

Manuel Rodriguez

Project Manager

Venture Invercaria (Spain)

Since 2005,Manuel Rodriguez is Investment Director at INNOVA VENTURE SGECR, S.A., a public venture capital company owned by the Regional Government of Andalucia focused in early stages (seed and start-up), analyzing business plan of more than 500 companies, supervising and elaborating the evaluation documents and the proposal of investment definition, negotiating the shareholders' agreement and monitoring the investment from the Board of Directors. Graduated in Economics Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

“Maximizing investment value through Clinical Development Strategy”

José González Martínez

Associate Principal, Consulting Services

IQVIA (Spain)

José González is Associate Principal within IQVIA’s Strategic Consulting Team. He has a track record of more than 10 years and is specialized in advising companies in the Pharma and Biotech industries, valuation of investment opportunities in the health sector, long term corporate strategy and new market entry strategy. He holds a degree in Business Administration and environmental sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a MBA from Duke University.

Start-ups presentations

15:15 - Tetraneuron (Spain)
15:25 - Vaxdyn (Spain)
15:35 - Versantis (Switzerland)

Plenary Session - Italica Auditorium Marta Alarcón Riquelme, Head-Area of Medical Genomics (Genyo)

Marta E. Alarcón Riquelme
Head of Medical Genomics, Genyo (Spain)
Head Managing Entity PRECISESADS IMI Project

Towards the Re-clasification of the Systemic Autoimmune Diseases

Dr. Alarcón background is in Medicine with a PhD in Immunology at Stockholms University. From there Dr. Alarcón did her postdoctoral work at Uppsala University, In Sweden on the genetics of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus until she became Full Professor in 2009. She also spent 6 years at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (2009-2015) and since 2011 Dr. Alarcón has set up her laboratory in Spain, Granada at Genyo (Pfizer-University of Granada-Junta de Andalucia Centre for Genomics & Oncological Research).

Dr. Alarcon has identified several genes involved in the susceptibility to develop lupus, published in Nature Genetics (2002, 2006, 2008) and lately, with the PRECISESADS project we are working on the molecular reclassification of the systemic autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and Sjogren´s syndrome.

Big-Pharma presentations

16:15 - 17:00

16:15 Johnson & Johnson

“External Innovation from Jonhon & Johnson”

Antonio Gomez
New Ventures Lead
Johnson & Johnson (Spain)

Antonio Gomez has almost 20 years of experience in the Pharma industry. Right before getting a PhD in Synthetic Organic chemistry from the University of Salamanca he joined the Janssen R&D group in Toledo as a medicinal chemist in 1996. In 2000 he spent one year in the Research Support group of Janssen Pharmaceutica at Beerse, Belgium. Then, he came back to Toledo, where he has held different positions coordinating first the internal projects, then the scientific IT with a special role in the development of the Janssen R&D Electronic Lab Notebook and, since 2012, the external collaborations. Starting in late 2013 this role has been integrated into the position of New Ventures Lead in Spain for the London Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center. As such he is in charge of scouting the Spanish scientific landscape and setting up collaborations in the country.

16:25 Eli Lilly and Company:

"BIC Cassette as a New Tool to Enable Novel Biological Targets"

Maria Angeles Martinez Grau
Senior Research Advisor, Medicinal Chemistry and External Innovation
Eli Lilly and Company (Spain)

Maria Angeles received her doctorate in Organic Chemistry from Universidad Complutense in 1994 and the “National Award for Young Investigators” (RSEQ) in 1995. After two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh, she became Associate Professor at Universidad Complutense. Maria Angeles joined Lilly in 1998 at the Spanish site and accepted an assignment for three years in Indianapolis. As medicinal chemist, she has contributed to deliver 12 clinical candidates in the areas of Neuroscience, Obesity and Diabetes. In 2017, she accepted the role of Coordinator of External Innovation in Europe in addition to her scientific responsibilities.

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16:35 MSD

"Collaborating and partnering with MSD”

Phil L’Huillier
Head of Business Development, Europe & Middle East
MSD (United Kingdom)

Phil is Head of Business Development, Europe & Middle East for Merck, Sharpe & Dohme (MSD), based in London. He is a seasoned business development professional with 15+ years’ experience in the biotech/pharma industry, in R&D, licensing/partnering, new company formation and M&A. Prior to joining MSD, Phil was an Executive Director at Cancer Research Technology Ltd.

Phil has previously been a director of numerous start-ups including Achilles Therapeutics, Artois Pharma, PsiOxus Therapeutics and BliNK BioMedical. Prior to CRT, Phil headed up global licensing at BioFocus Discovery Ltd, an AIM-listed integrated early stage drug discovery company. Phil holds an MBA, and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology.

16:45 Novartis Pharma AG

“Your partner of choice”

Begoña Carreno
WorldWide Head BD&L Respiratory
Novartis Pharma AG (Switzerland)

Begoña Carreño PhD, is currently the World Wide BD&L Head in the Respiratory Franchise at Novartis Pharma AG, based in Basel, Switzerland. Begoña has been at Novartis for 14 years, mainly within the BD&L function managing different therapeutic areas. Before joining Novartis, she was the Head of External Pharmaceutical projects at Almirall (Barcelona, Spain). Begoña holds a PhD in Drug Delivery from the London School of Pharmacy (UK) and a BSc in Biochemistry from Keele University (UK). She is married with two children, Carla (5) and Santiago (2) that keep her occupied in her spare time.

Corporate vs Private VC: differences, similarities & sinergies

17:00 - 18:00

Sponsored by:

Funding options in the biotech sector have opened up, at the same time that new business models emerge. Venture Capital seems more and more interested in funding startups, and corporate investment rises as an investment model to boost their growth with a dedicated investment team that resides within the corporation. In the search of high-growth potential companies, do VC and Corporate investors look for the same type of companies? Which is the control level they look for? Which are the differences, similarities and synergies?

Chairperson:

María Jesús Fernández
Executive Director
ICEX-Invest in Spain Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism (Spain)

María J. Fernández is Executive Director at ICEX-Invest in Spain, where she also served as Director of Financing and Investor Relations. Previously she served as Trade Commissioner of Spain in Chicago for five years and Director General for International Financing at the Ministry of Economy and Finance for two years.

During her extensive professional career, she has also held senior positions at the Bank of Spain, where she was Head of the International Relations Division and Head of the European Affairs Division; at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, where she represented Spain at the Executive Board as Senior Advisor and Alternate Executive Director respectively; and at the Defense of Competition Tribunal, where she was Head of the President’s Office and Deputy Director of the Studies Department.

Speakers:

"CVC funding - early stage appetite vs risk and company building"

Hakan Goker
Senior Investment Director
M Ventures (Netherlands)

Senior investment director at M Ventures, corporate venture arm of the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Hakan has been investing for the past 12 years and joined Merck Ventures in 2013. Previously Hakan was a partner at Aescap Venture and prior to that worked at Atlas Venture. Since 2006, Hakan was instrumental in the creation, financing, and corporate strategy of multiple biotechnology companies globally including Artios, Asceneuron, Storm, Bicycle, and F-star. Hakan received his PhD in cancer biology from the Institute of Cancer Research/ University of London and continued his scientific career with post-doctoral work at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre/Royal Marsden Hospital.

Giovanni Mariggi
Principal
Medicxi (United Kingdom)

Principal in the Medicxi investment team with main focus on growth stage clinical opportunities. Prior to joining Medicxi, Giovanni was a Principal with Index Ventures, having joined the firm in 2012. Before that he was at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute (LRI; now the Crick Institute). At the LRI he conducted research focused on vascular biology and angiogenesis, whilst also delivering competitive intelligence projects to biopharmaceutical companies in the oncology field. Giovanni currently sits on the board of directors of Gadeta, SuperX, Kymo Therapeutics and Janpix.

Julien Michaux
Managing Director
Norgine Ventures (United Kingdom)

Julien Michaux joined Norgine Ventures from Lazard where as a member of the Healthcare M&A team he advised many European and US clients on merger and acquisition transactions. Julien joined Lazard in 2005 from J&J Pharmaceuticals where he worked as part of the M&A team. Julien has 11 years of experience in the Healthcare industry. He started his career with Procter & Gamble.

“Life science investing from an institutional VC´s point of view”

Stefan Luzi
Partner
Gilde Healthcare (The Netherlands)

Stefan Luzi joined Gilde Healthcare in 2015. He is focusing on venture and growth capital investments in the biopharmaceutical and life science instruments sectors. He led the investment in Lava Therapeutics B.V. and was part of several other investments. Stefan holds a MSc in Biotechnology degree from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and a MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise degree from the University of Cambridge (UK). He also completed a PhD program with Sir Gregory Winter at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (UK), where he developed a bicyclic peptide-based drug discovery platform.

“The CEOs perspective – creating a balanced investor base for growth”

Keith Blundy
Chief Executive
Storm Therapeutics (United Kingdom)

CEO of the Cambridge cancer drug discovery start-up Storm Therapeutics and the former CEO of Cancer Research Technology (CRT). His experience covers ten years developing and commercialising plant biotechnology inventions and the last twenty years in cancer drug discovery and IP commercialisation. Whilst at CRT he established the CRT Pioneer Fund and was involved in forming companies such as Kudos, PIramed, Mission Therapeutics and GammaDelta Therapeutics. He is currently Chairman of Cizzle Biotechnology and on the board of Inivata.

Sergio Pérez
Managing Director Sabadell Venture Capital
Banco Sabadell Capital (Spain)

Sergio Pérez is an Investment Director at the Venture Capital division of Banco Sabadell. Sabadell Venture Capital , is Banco Sabadell´s initiative that directly provides equity and venture debt to early stage companies across Spain with a focus on ICT with a philosophy focused on supporting entrepreneurs. In addition, Sabadell Venture Capital has been carried out its presence in the healthcare investments, acting as an LP in funds and through direct co-investment agreements with these funds.

Welcome Reception (Location: The Real Venta de Antequera. Avenida de Jerez Nº54 , 41014 Sevilla)

19:00 - 21:30

BREAKOUT SESSIONS - Ronda Room

Is there a way out of the dementia maze?

10:45 - 11:45

Sponsored by:

After 15 years of disappointing clinical trial results in AD and relatively little late stage clinical trial work in other dementias, are we perhaps looking in the wrong places? Much of the research has been very protein specific, especially amyloid and tau, but does these protein changes truly reflect pathology or are they markers of something else? Moving earlier in the described disease processes has brought very limited signs of success, partly perhaps due to the fact that placebo decline is so small at this stage. Neurodegeneration, synaptic loss and especially neuro-inflammation are now increasingly implicated in the dementia process and may have common mechanisms that can be explored. Can we tap in to these, especially with compounds with a more multimodal action? If so, this means adapting the disease modification ideal to something less specific and maybe defining what happens generally as the brain ‘fails’ and the impact we might have on that as a whole, rather than comparing averages in specific disease scales derived from population studies. The time has come for a challenging look at our hypotheses, methods and methodologies in dementia studies; in comparison with and alongside other complex conditions, such as cancer and heart disease. Our panel will highlight some of the issues and offer personal perspectives, after which there will be plenty of time for discussion. Our aim, collectively with the audience, is to disrupt the current thinking in order to develop new insights on how to find the pathway from where we can find our way out of the current dementia maze.

Chairperson:

Roger Bullock
Chief Medical Officer
Oryzon (Spain)

Since May 2017, Roger Bullock has been the Chief Medical Officer at Oryzon Genomics. He came to industry after nearly 30 years of academic clinical research in various neurological disorders, but especially Alzheimer’s disease. Trained initially as a psychiatrist, he has been involved in the development of all the current drugs available in AD and is overseeing the current Oryzon study in that area, among several others. Roger worked in the UK NHS for 30 years as well as conducting research. He has over 100 publications and continues to be an active international speaker.

Speakers:

"Defeating dementia - what can we learn from other neurodegenerative disorders?"

Jina Swartz
Therapeutic Area Head Neurosciences and Executive Medical Director, Global Clinical Development - EU
MSD (Merck and Co)(U.K.)

Dr Jina Swartz trained in Internal Medicine and Clinical Neurology in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she obtained her MBBCh (or MD) degree cum laude, followed by an MSc Medicine (in Neurology). She has a very broad-based clinical training obtained both in South Africa and the United Kingdom, having worked as a clinician in Internal Medicine, Neurology, Infectious diseases (with a particular emphasis on tropical diseases and HIV/AIDS), Paediatric surgery, Plastics Surgery and Psychiatry. Within the Neurology speciality, she has a special interest in neurodegenerative disorders (encompassing dementias and movement disorders including Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinocerebellar degenerations), cerebrovascular disease, infectious Neurology (and HIV/AIDS), migraine, Paediatric Neurology and Neurogenetics. Following the award of a post-doctoral research fellowship in 1998, she completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Medical Genetics at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR). This research explored molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration in cellular models of Huntington's disease.

"Enrichment and reducing the placebo response: disease modification and neuropsychiatric symptoms"

Clive Ballard
Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean & Professor of Age-related Diseases
The University of Exeter Medical School (U.K.)

Clive Ballard is part of a growing team of outstanding dementia researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School, which is recruiting high-calibre academics and expanding educational programmes and student numbers. In the last year, the Medical School has reached the Leiden ranking’s world top 30 for the quality of its Health and Biomedical Science research, attracted a £10 million donation from the Dennis and Mireille Gillings Foundation, launched a new Academy of Nursing and received permission to expand Medicine student numbers.

Clive is a world-renowned researcher who has led or co-authored well over 500 research papers. His main research specialisms are drug discovery, dementia prevention, improving care for people with dementia in residential homes, reducing prescribing of harmful antipsychotic drugs for people with dementia and researching more beneficial alternatives. He is also an expert in Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson’s Disease Dementia, and is an advocate of better prescribing and treatment pathways to improve outcomes. Before joining Exeter, Clive held directorship roles at King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry and at the Alzheimer’s Society. He was pivotal in the successful campaign to overturn a NICE decision and make anti-dementia drugs available for people with dementia.

Rajat Mukherjee
CYTEL (USA)

Welcome remarks & institutional inauguration Italica Auditorium

12:00 - 13:00

Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:00

Milestones and Current Challenges in Advanced Therapies

14:15 - 15:45

In collaboration with;

This session will focus on the challenges in the development of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products as well as in making these innovative products available to patients. Several examples from academia and industry will illustrate some milestones achieved and specific hurdles associated with cell, gene and tissue engineering products.

Chairperson:

Edwin Wagena
Chief Operating Officer
Rexgenero (UK)

Edwin Wagena was appointed as Chief Operating Officer of Rexgenero in April 2015. Edwin has close to 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical development both in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. He has strong knowledge and experience with the development of advanced-therapy medicinal products (ATMPs). Prior to Rexgenero, Edwin served as Chief Development Officer and Senior Vice President at Kiadis Pharma B.V. Between June 2014 and May 2016, Edwin was the Regional Vice-President Europe for the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT). Edwin is an epidemiologist and received his M.A. in Health Sciences from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He obtained his Ph.D. in Medicine at the University Hospital Maastricht/Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

Speakers:

“Making ATMPs accessible to patients: the new Strategy and Action Plan of the Andalusian Initiative for Advanced Therapies”

Natividad Cuende
Director
Andalusian Initiative for Advanced Therapies (Spain)

Natividad Cuende is the Executive Director of the Andalusian Initiative for Advanced Therapies since its creation in 2008 by the Regional Government of Andalusia. She is also the Deputy Director of the Andalusian Transplant Coordination since 2005 and previously she worked at the National Transplant Organization for over 7 years. Degree of MD and PhD, she is specialist on Family and Community Medicine as well as on Preventive Medicine and Public Health after 6 years as resident physician at different hospitals. She is the Director of the International Master Degree in Manufacturing of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products and has published more than 150 scientific and technical publications. She is the Chair of the European Legal and Regulatory Affairs Committee of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT) since 2014 and she also participates on several scientific committees and in multiple expert working groups.

“Exploring the role of IPS-derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells for generating advanced therapies for patients with Age-related macular degeneration (AMD)”

Francisco Javier Diaz-Corrales
Department of Cell Therapy & Regenerative Medicine
Andalusian Centre of Molecular Biology & Regenerative Medicine - CABIMER (Spain)

Neurologist and Ph.D in Biomedical Sciences (Okayama University, Japan, 2006). Senior Researcher at CABIMER, Seville (since 2008). Large expertise in the development of advanced therapies for retinal degenerative diseases. Co-inventor of in-licensed patents of gene therapy and neuroprotective drugs. Co-founder of LIMNO Pharmaceuticals (spin-off to be constituted).

“Mesenchymal Stromal Cells: Current Limitations and Future Developments”

Massimo Dominici
Head of the Laboratory of Cellular Therapies
University Hospital of Modena (Italy)

MD degree at the University of Pavia. Post-graduate internship at the Vienna University (Austria). Residency in Hematology at the University of Ferrara. Post-Doctoral Associate at St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis (USA). Hospital physician, associate professor of Medical Oncology, director of the residency School in medical oncology, head of the Laboratory of Cellular Therapies at the Modena and Reggio Emilia University (Italy). More than 130 papers with over 17000 citations, 12 patents. Coordinator of the Mirandola Science & Tecnology Park. Referee for 16 founding Bodies. He has been co-founder of the Forum of Italian Researcher on MSC (FIRST), board member of JACIE, WBMT and scientific advisor for the Italian Minister of Health. He has been member of ISCT, ASH, ESCGT, IFATS, IPLASS. He is the scientific founder of the university start-up Rigenerand. He has been President of ISCT 2014-2016, now Chair of the ISCT presidential task-force on unproven cellular therapy.

“Personalized tissue engineered grafts – a specialty within a specialty area”

Raimund Strehl
Chief Technology Officer
Verigraft (Sweden)

Raimund Strehl (M) holds a PhD in cell biology and has an academic background within advanced cell culture and tissue engineering. He has published 50+ articles and invited reviews in peer reviewed journals as well books and book chapters. Raimund has an industrial background in the field of human pluripotent stem cell development and application. During over ten years at Cellartis, he was heading product development and manufacturing in the role of Chief Technology Officer, responsible for collaborations with major pharmaceutical and biotech companies. He has extensive experience from EU funded programs as PI or work package leader. Since 2015, Raimund is Chief Technology Officer for VERIGRAFT, where he is heading the process of industrializing advanced therapies in the vascular regeneration field.

Plenary Session - Italica Auditorium Marta Alarcón Riquelme, Head-Area of Medical Genomics (Genyo)

Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:00

Biobanking has become an important resource for healthcare research, medical care, and drug discovery. The kinds of questions being addressed in contemporary medical research depend upon the availability of biological tissue samples along with associated clinical data including medical, ´omics, genealogical, and lifestyle information. International awareness of the need for biobanks has increased, in part, because of the growing promise of research related to the development of personalized medicine, especially in oncology. Identification of biomarkers that are specifically associated with particular medical conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, rare diseases and neurological disorders, among others, are useful for early detection, prevention, and treatment of the diseases. The ability to determine individual biomarkers and to use those biomarkers for disease diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to therapy is having a very significant impact on personalized medicine and is rapidly changing the way clinical care is conducted.

As a critical requirement for personalized medicine is the availability of a large collection of patient samples with well annotated patient clinical and pathological data, biobanks thus play an important role in personalized medicine advancement. Identification and validation of disease-relevant biomarkers is essential to developing diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic applications that will improve community health and protect the public from illnesses. For these purposes, high-quality and well-annotated tissue sample collections housed in specialized bio-repositories must be available.

The most important aspects of a biobank are consistency and quality. The validity of the data generated by biobanked samples depends on their quality, which is in turn dependent on the use of stringent standards in collecting the biospecimens and delineating patient characteristics. Variations associated with collecting, processing and storing different samples and the accompanying clinical data, make it extremely difficult to extrapolate or to merge data from different studies. Therefore, the standardisation and harmonisation of biobanking practices are of paramount importance.

The need for data grows strongly. It demands the gathering and administration of large collections of samples and related data, often from multiple sources. Hence, ‘virtual biobanks’ started forming with international collaboration and geographically distributed forms of endeavour.

Although researchers worldwide recognize European biobanks as important resources, obstacles to their efficient use exist. Critical points are the fragmentation of sample collections and a lack of harmony among technical, ethical, and legal requirements.

Data sharing across biobanks and research programs will be very important in the future of medical research to better understand individual differences in disease development, progression of disease, and response to treatment. Enabling such data sharing while protecting the privacy of individual research participants is a major challenge for the future. Biobanks will need to address data standards, metadata requirements, data quality, and how data are stored and accessed.

Challenges mentioned above and the impact of collaborative biobanking infrastructures in the framework of Horizon 2020 and beyond will be discussed.

Chairperson:

Manuel Rodríguez: Scientific
Director
Andalusian Public Health System Biobank (SSPA) (Spain)

Speakers:

Cristina Villena
Coordinator
National Biobanks Network Platform - PRNB (Spain)

Victor González
R&D Director
Atrys Health (Spain)
Francesco Florindi
Engagement Officer
BBMRI-ERIC (Austria)

Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:00

Victor González
R&D Director
Atrys Health (Spain)

Francesco Florindi
Engagement Officer
BBMRI-ERIC (Austria)

Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:00

Victor González
R&D Director
Atrys Health (Spain)

Francesco Florindi
Engagement Officer
BBMRI-ERIC (Austria)

Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:15

Sponsored by:

The most important aspects of a biobank are consistency and quality. The validity of the data generated by biobanked samples depends on their quality, which is in turn dependent on the use of stringent standards in collecting the biospecimens and delineating patient characteristics. Variations associated with collecting, processing and storing different samples and the accompanying clinical data, make it extremely difficult to extrapolate or to merge data from different studies. Therefore, the standardisation and harmonisation of biobanking practices are of paramount importance. The need for data grows strongly. It demands the gathering and administration of large collections of samples and related data, often from multiple sources. Hence, ‘virtual biobanks’ started forming with international collaboration and geographically distributed forms of endeavour. Although researchers worldwide recognize European biobanks as important resources, obstacles to their efficient use exist. Critical points are the fragmentation of sample collections and a lack of harmony among technical, ethical, and legal requirements.

Chairperson:

“Biobank network: from specimen to big-data”

Manuel Rodríguez
Scientific Director
Andalusian Public Health System Biobank (SSPA) (Spain)

Speakers:

“Activity and services of Spanish National Biobank Network”

Cristina Villena
Coordinator
National Biobanks Network Platform - PRNB (Spain)

Cristina Villena Portella, PhD is the biobank manager of Pulmonary Biobank Consortium CIBERES (CIBER-ISCIII) since 2008 and, from 2018, also coordinator of the Spanish Biobank Network (ISCIII) formed by 39 biobanks, whose aim is improving Biomedical R&D through the access to standardized and well-characterized human biological samples for researchers and biotechnological companies.

Since 2015 she started the coordination of a biospecimen research line with the participation of 17 biobanks in Spain, getting in 2016 a multi-center project to develop the goals of this research line. The preliminary results have been published in several meetings, and getting some international prizes.

“Personalised medicine needs biobanking: is the biobanking community ready?”

Francesco Florindi
Engagement Officer
BBMRI-ERIC (Austria)

In BBMRI-ERIC, Francesco is responsible to coordinate the Stakeholder Forum, the main interface for European patients’ organisations, civil society, industry and academia to interact with the biobanking universe. Furthermore, Francesco helps raising awareness regarding the needs and expectations of the biobanking community towards the European Union, nurturing and maintaining relationships with the European institutions.

" Biobanks for industry: critical aspects”

Víctor González
R&D Director
Atrys Health (Spain)

Director of R+D Department at ATRYS HEALTH. PhD. MSc. Dr González-Rumayor obtained his PhD in Genetics from University Complutense of Madrid. He has developed his career in the following positions: Scientific Director of Super Seed Biotech SA (SME); Professor of Biotechnology at Universidad de Segovia; Director of Innovation Circle of Biotechnology at Parque Científico de Madrid; Senior Researcher in Regenerative Medicine and Advanced Therapies at Health Institute Carlos III; Director of Programs a t Direccion General de Terapias Avanzadas y Trasplantes. Health Ministery; Counselor at Ministry of Health. Government representative at Policy and Coordinating Committee for Human Reproductive Health and Research (WHO)

Big Data & Biomedical Research

17:15 - 18:00

Sponsored by:

In the last years, the capacity that new technologies offer us for the treatment of information has opened a new scenario of possibilities inconceivable some years ago. These new technologies and solutions, under the name of BigData, allow us to work with huge volumes of information of different nature and format, and treat it at a speed and with a level of veracity, not possible in our recent past. The applications in the field of health are potentially huge, for the detection of patterns of disease evolution, simulation of behaviors, development of prediction algorithms. However, given the nature of the information treated, all this must be compliance with the regulations on the matter, very recently updated with the GPDR.

Chairperson:

Juan Lucas Retamar Gentil
Deputy Director of Information Technology and Communications
SAS - Andalusian Health Service (Spain)

Industrial Engineer at Seville University, specialized in business administration, he completed studies at the INSA (National Institute of Applied Sciences) in Lyon. He first worked at Telvent (Abengoa group) four years as Project Manager in the Health ICT area, where he specialized in projects of digitalization of medical images. From Telvent he jumps to the Andalusian Health Service, where he develops his career the last thirteen years, successively holding posts of Technician (specialized in medical imaging), Head of Department in a medium hospital in Huelva (Hospital Juan Ramón Jiménez), CIO in a big hospital in Sevilla (Hospital Virgen Macarena, more than 5.000 employees) where he leads the complete transformation of the centre, and finally, CIO of the Andalusian Health Service for the last four years. From this role, he is responsible for different areas of competence and vertical field of technology, systems and infrastructure, support and maintenance of information systems, support user station, service user, etc ... for all public health centres at Andalucía system. In these years, Juan Lucas has made a deep reorganization of the TIC structure of the SAS, moving from small teams linked to centres, to a regional structure based on provincial teams dependent on the regional direction.

Speakers:

"Deep Learning applied to electronic health records"

Kazem Rahimi
Director, Deep Medicine Program
University of Oxford (U.K.)

Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford. He is a cardiologist, epidemiologist and health services researcher with interest in prevention and management of chronic diseases. He has led the design, coordination and reporting of multi-centre randomized trials, collaborative meta-analyses and large-scale observational studies that have investigated the burden, causes and management of cardiovascular diseases. He is the Director of the Oxford Martin programme on Deep Medicine which is using some of the largest and most complex biomedical datasets that have ever been collected to generate insights into complex disease patterns, risk trajectories and treatment effects.

“Smart Knowledge Management for Healthcare”

Jorge Laguna Fanlo
Head of Smart Knowledge Management
Everis (Spain)

Bachelor in Economic and Business Sciences, Postgraduate in Computer Engineering and PDD Master by IESE.
He started his career in computer consulting 20 years ago at CEMEX (Madrid) and later at ATCA (Technical Association of Savings Banks) and at Net2You in Zaragoza. He has combined his technological experience with banking management, being responsible for Operational Risk in CAI Savings Bank and in the area of Management Information Systems of Ibercaja Bank. He is currently the head of the Knowledge Management Office at everis and leading the development of advanced analytics solutions for healthcare.

“Andalusian Public Health System Population Health Database”

Francisco José Sanchez Laguna
Head of the Health Information Systems Coordination Department
SAS - Andalusian Health Service (Spain)

Francisco Sánchez Laguna is currently the head of the Information Systems Coordination Unit at the Andalusian Health Service since 2014. Previously he has been Deputy Chief Medical Officer at University Hospital Reina Sofia (Cordoba, Spain) for 4 years (2007-2011), leading most eHealth projects within the hospital. He was also responsible of the outpatients and diagnostic areas as well as the coordination with primary care.

Ignacio Hernández Medrano
CEO
Savana Medical (Spain)

Dr Medrano is a neurologist at Hospital Ramon y Cajal in Madrid. He is also the co-founder & CEO at Savana (Transforming healthcare through Artificial Intelligence) and the co-founder & CMO at Mendelian (Democratizing genomics in healthcare). Dr Medrano specialises in digital health, IT, entrepreneurship, innovation, education and research management as well as health information systems, quality systems and neurology.

Welcome Reception (Location: The Real Venta de Antequera. Avenida de Jerez Nº54 , 41014 Sevilla)

19:00 - 21:30

BREAKOUT SESSIONS -Bahia Room

Agrobiotechnology forum

10:00 - 12:00

10:00 - 10:15 PART 1. INTRODUCTION

Soledad de Juan Arechederra
Director, Radio Program Onda Agraria & Manager
Onda Cero Radio (Spain) & Fundación Antama

Soledad de Juan Arechederra is an Agronomist from the Polytechnic University of Madrid with more than twenty years of experience in agronomy. For the last 15 years, she has been developing her work in the area of communication in the agri-food sector.

She currently directs the ANTAMA Foundation, a non-profit organization whose purpose is the promotion of new technologies applied to agriculture, the environment and food, bringing the reality of green bioltechnology closer to media, agricultural sector, society, educators and anyone interested in the development of biotechnology.

Soledad de Juan Arechederra makes this activity compatible with the co-direction for more than 15 years of the ONDA AGRARIA program, a national broadcast radio programme in the area of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, food, rural development and environment in ONDA CERO RADIO.

10:15 - 11:00 PART 2. CHALLENGES IN THE AGROFOOD INDUSTRY

Challenges for Crop Biotechnology in Europe

Graham Brookes
Agricultural Economist
PG Economics Ltd (UK)

Graham is an agricultural economist and consultant with more than 30 years’ experience of examining economic issues relating to the agricultural and food sectors. He is a specialist in analyzing the impact of technology, policy changes and regulatory impact. He has, since the late 1990s, undertaken a number of research projects relating to the impact of agricultural biotechnology and written widely on this subject in peer reviewed journals. This work includes annual updates of a global economic and environmental impact of GM crops report, the impact of insect resistant maize in Spain and herbicide tolerant soybeans in Romania, the impact of GMO labelling and ‘GMO avoidance’ in Europe, the economic impact of GMO zero tolerance legislation in the EU, the cost to the UK economy of failure to embrace agricultural biotechnology, the economic impact of bio-safety legislation in Turkey and studies of the potential impact of using crop biotechnology in the Ukraine, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

“Transforming industries: new technology innovation in the Agrofood Industry”

Ignasi Papell
Business Development Manager Food Industry
Eurecat – Technology Center (Spain)

Ignasi is a Chemical Engineer with experience in business innovation and R&D projects, at both European and national level, in particular in the field of the food industry. Passionate about business development, new technologies, innovation and technology transfer, he is currently responsible for the food sector in Eurecat Technology Center. Biotechnology, industrial technologies and digitalisation are relevant areas when facing the CHALLENGES IN THE AGROFOOD INDUSTRY.

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"Mediterranean Horticulture facing Bioeconomy”

Paco Egea

Professor of Analytical Chemistry

University of Almeria (Spain)

Francisco Egea is professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Almeria, Spain. Expert in food safety and greenhouse agricultural practices. He has published 55 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and co-founded a spin-off company related with advanced analytical services. He has been Vice-chancellor of RTD at the Univerisity of Almeria, Director of the Knowledge Transfer Office at the same university, and deputy director of the Research Centre of Agri-food Biotechnology (BITTAL). He has been Detached National Expert in a training programme at the Sustainable Agricultural Unit of the Directorate General Development and Cooperation of the European Commission and takes part as expert of the European Innovation Partnership EIPAGRI focus group “Circular Horticulture“.

11:00 -11:45 - PART 3. BIOTECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR THE AGROALIMENTARY INDUSTRY

Current and future biotechnological tools applied to plant breeding

Jordi García-Mas
Plant and Animal Genomics Program
Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics – CRAG (Spain)

PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1994) and Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Sainsbury Laboratory (Norwich, UK) (1995-1997) in plant genetics. Since 1997, he is an IRTA researcher and in 2011 he joined the Plant and Animal Genomics Program at the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB (CRAG). He is co-author of 76 publications in international peer-reviewed journals. Among other projects, he has coordinated the sequencing of the melon genome (MELONOMICS). He has contrasted experience in the transfer of genetic and genomic tools that are used in breeding programs by seed companies. He has participated in several national and international evaluation panels, regularly teaches in Master and Degree courses and has supervised 7 PhD theses.

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Waste valorization: lignocellulosic feedstocks as a sustainable platform for the production of bio-based compounds

Eduardo Díaz
Environmental Microbiology Group
Biological Research Centre, CSIC (Spain)

Dr. Eduardo Díaz obtained his PhD in Biology at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) in 1991. Following the award of a post-doctoral research fellowship from 1992-1995 he worked at the National Center for Biotechnology (GBF) in Braunschweig (Germany) in the field of environmental microbiology. Since 1999 he is scientific researcher of the CSIC at the Biological Research Centre in Madrid, where he is currently heading the Environmental Microbiology group at the Microbial and Plant Biotechnology Department. He has more than 100 publications in international research journals on the genetics and molecular aspects of the biodegradation/bioconversion of contaminants in bacteria, as well as on the engineering of recombinant biocatalysts for biotechnological purposes. He has teaching experience supervising 14 PhD theses and 7 Master Degrees, and he has been member of several scientific committees of international congresses and selection committees of national research projects.

Functional foods, health claims and personalization

Andreu Palou
Director of the Laborarory of Molecular Biology, Nutrition and Biotecnology
University of the Balearics Islands (Spain)

Andreu Palou is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Nutrition and Biotechnology of the UIB and of the research group "Nutrigenómica y Obesidad" of CIBEROBN (Centro de Investigaciçon Biomédica en Red sobre Obesidad y Nutrición). Author of more than 350 scientific articles and several patents. He has been Vice-president of the Scientific Nutrition Panel of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and vice-president and member of the Scientific Committee on Food. He was the first president of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN, actually AESAN) (2003-2010). He has received several awards, including the DuPont Science Award (2014). More information (CV) at: http://palou.uib.es/Andreu-Palou/

Welcome remarks & institutional inauguration Italica Auditorium

12:00 - 13:00

Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:00

Foodbiotech & Bioprocess

14:15 - 15:15

In the agricultural sector we are currently facing a series of global challenges that we must face with concrete measures; Population growth and food security, dependence on fossil resources to produce and climate change are pushing us towards a new paradigm in food production.

In this sense, biotechnology is presented as an opportunity to improve the quality of life, the environment and the generation of qualified employment. The speakers who are going to participate in this session will enlighten us with practical examples that they have implemented in their company or in their research activity.

Chairperson:

Pilar Garrido Granados
Program and Reports Advisor
CAPDER (Spain)

Pilar Garrido Granado– Programmes and Reports Consultant in Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development. She has a Degree on Agrarian Engineering and a Master Degree in Agronomist Engineering. She has worked in different Services in the Regional Ministry of Agriculture (Agrarian Production, Vegetal Health) since 2005. She worked as Technical advisor in the General Secretary's Office of Agriculture and Food and she led the Studies and Statistical Service in the General Secretary's Office of Agriculture and Food. She has planned and coordinates the Studies and Statistics in the agrarian and fishing sectors in Andalusia, coordinating it with other public Administrations and Institutions. She is currently involved in planning and evaluation of policies, with the aim of incorporating the possibilities offered by new technologies and the bioeconomy in the Andalusian agro sector.

Speakers:

Ricardo Ortiz
Business Manager
Rijk Zwaan (Spain)

Ricardo Ortiz, has a proven executive management track record and over 20 years of experience driving sales growth and marketing activities in the seed industry as Business Manager of Rijk Zwaan Ibérica, where he leads the implementation of all sales and marketing strategies in the Cluster formed by Spain, Portugal and Morocco countries, making his managerial responsibilities compatible with the coordination of the global pepper development.

Rijk Zwaan is amonst the top 5 vegetable breeding companies in the world. The focus is fully on vegetable seeds and offer a wide assortment within the sector.

"Innovations in quality & safety of fresh-cut produce"

Giancarlo Colelli
Professor, Department of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences
University of Foggia (Italy)

Full Professor of Equipments for Postharvest Operations at the University of Foggia, Italy, where he also chairs the Doctorate Program on “Innovation Management in Agricultural and Food Systems of the Mediterranean Region”. R&D activities at the University of Foggia primarily include equipment implications on quality of whole and of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables, non-destructive technology for assessment of quality attributes in fresh fruits and vegetables, low impact technologies to extend the shelf-life of fresh fruits and vegetables. As principal investigator he has coordinated more than 20 national and International R&D Projects. In conjuction with other colleagues organized all editions of the European Short-course on Quality & Safety of Fresh-cut Produce (in Italy, Spain, Germany, Turkey, UK; next edition in Portugal). He is author of more than 200 scientific papers on national and international journals and proceedings.

"Algae for a Healthy World”

Francisco Javier Fernandez-Acero
Vice-Rectorate for Transference and Technological Innovation, General Director, Associate Professor. Laboratory of Microbiology, Institute for Viticulture and Agri-Food Research Marine and Environmental Sciences Faculty (CASEM), CeiA3/CeIMAR
University of Cádiz (Spain)

Associate Professor of Microbiology, University of Cadiz. Coordinator of the Microbiology Lab at the Research Institute of Viticulture and Agrifood Research (IVAGRO). Research interest: Proteomics approaches to non-model microorganism. Biotechnological applications of non-model environmental microorganisms.

Increasing the value of your Asset: considerations for Phase I hybrid trials

Sponsored by:

This presentation will highlight the importance of gaining efficacy data early in clinical development and describe how Covance’s approach to hybrid Phase I study designs enables you to add value by inclusion of patients earlier in development. This multidisciplinary approach driven by scientific and medical insight will be illustrated by recent case histories in different therapeutic areas.

Speaker:

Amitava Ganguli
Medical Director, Medical & Scientific Affairs
Covance (UK)

>15 years of experience in clinical research and internal medicine. >10 years as an investigator in both healthy volunteers and patients in phase I to IV. PI for renal impairment patient trials. Medical Director roles at 3 MHRA accredited phase I units in the UK. Certified in Clinical Pharmacology and General Internal Medicine; Honorary Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at University of Liverpool.

Plenary Session - Italica Auditorium Marta Alarcón Riquelme, Head-Area of Medical Genomics (Genyo)

New therapeutic approaches in ophthalmology

16:15 - 17:15

Sponsored by:

Over the past years there have been considerable advances in the understanding of the pathogenesis of ophthalmic disorders. This knowledge is being translated to the drug discovery field. A variety of therapeutic approaches like advanced therapies, RNA interference technologies and new peptides will be discussed during the session with a special focus on their future impact in the treatment of severe unsolved diseases.

Chairperson:

Andres G. Fernández
Director
Ferrer Advanced Biotherapeutics (Spain)

PhD (Pharmacology; Univ. Barcelona) and MS (Pharmacy Spec. Biochemistry; Univ. Barcelona). Current position: Director of Ferrer Advanced Biotherapeutics at Ferrer. Previous positions: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences, Director (Ferrer); R&D Director & Member of the Board (Salvat); Associate Director of Discovery (Almirall); Associate Professor Cell Biology (UAB); Head of Pharmacology (Almirall). Direct executive and scientific responsibilities on teams successfully developing and launching: 5 New Molecular Entities (EU/USA/ASIA); 1 New Therapeutic Entity in USA/EU and 1 New Molecular DX product in oncology in EU. Co-author of over 40 peer-review publications, 110 communications and lectures and co-inventor of 18 international patent applications. Director of two doctoral theses. Former Chairman of the Program Committee of the International Union of Pharmacology (IUPHAR). Former member of the Board of Directors of ASEBIO. Chairman of the Catalan Society of Medical Biotechnology. Expert Panel Member and Mentor in CaixaImpulse Programme. Member of the Scientific Advisory Board at BIONAND. Member of the Scientific Committee of multiple Congresses and Meetings. Member of the Jury of various Scientific Awards. Frequent Invited Speaker at many Scientific or Academic events. Current interests: Open innovation & Collaborative Bio-Research. Advanced Therapies. Neuropharmacology. Ophthalmology. Molecular diagnostics. Research policies & sustainability.

Speakers:

"Oligonucleotide-based therapies. Development of RNAi compounds for the treatment of ocular conditions"

Ana Isabel Jiménez
COO, R&D Director
Sylentis (Spain)

Ana Isabel Jimenez obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University and MS in Biological Sciences (Spec. Biochemistry) from the Complutense University. She also obtained a Management Development Program diploma from the EOI Business School in Madrid. She completed post-doctoral training at the Department of Molecular Pathology National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) where she was author of several publications of international relevance. In 2003, she joined Genomic SAU (Zeltia group) in the position of Senior Researcher in R&D Department. In 2006, she was appointed Director of Research & Development at Sylentis (Zeltia group). She was promoted to her current position Chief Operations Officer at Sylentis (Pharmamar group) in 2013 where she is direct executive and scientific responsibilities on teams successfully developing drugs based on RNA interference for different pathologies. Co-author of over 20 peer-review publications, 50 communications and lectures, co-inventor of 16 international patent applications and more than 15 funded research programs. Mentor in the Mentoring program USC (Santiago Compostela University). Lecturer in postgraduate programs in the field of health in CESIF, Carlos III University, CEU, Aliter and IUCT. Lecturer in Biotechnology degree in Francisco de Vitoria University. Current interests: R&D. Oligonucleotides. RNA Interference. Drug development. Preclinical Models. Nanotecnology. Bio-informatics. Open innovation. Ophthalmology. Rare Diseases. Molecular Biology. Intellectual Property.

"New perspectives in retinal degenerative diseases"

José Carlos Pastor
Director
IOBA - Valladolid Cell Therapies (Spain)

MD (University of Navarra, Pamplona, 1974); PhD (university of Navarra, Pamplona, 1975). Specialist in Ophthalmology (University of Zaragoza, 1976). Full professor of Ophthalmology (University of Santiago de Compostela, 1979); Chairman of Ophthalmology (University of Valladolid, 1981). Founder of the IOBA (Eye Institute, University of Valladolid, 1994). Vice-Chancellor of Research (1987-1991, University of Valladolid). Current position: Full professor of Ophthalmology (University of Valladolid) and Chairman of Ophthalmology (Hospital Clinico Universitario, Valladolid), Director of the Retina Group at IOBA (Recognized Research Group by the University of Valladolid and Consolidated Research Unit by the Regional Government). General Coordinator of Oftared (Cooperative Research Network, Carlos III Institute of Health). Co-inventor of 8 patent applications. Author of 259 publications (120 in indexed journals), more than 500 communications and 32 books or chapters. Director of 43 doctoral thesis. Six stretches of research (six-year period) recognized by the Ministry of Science. Member of the Editorial Board of 12 scientific journals. Editor in Chief of the Spanish Journal of Ophthalmology (1995-2000), during that time journal was indexed and included in PubMed. Reviewer of 16 scientific journals. Member of the Biomedical Sciences Advisory Committee of the National Commission to Evaluate the Research Activity (2004-2006). 33 national and internationals awards (among them the Regional Annual Medal in Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation, Junta de Castilla y Leon, 2016). Reviewer of research projects for several National and International Agencies (FP7, Cordis EX2006C170303, of the European Union in the area of Health, Argentinian Ministry of Science). National expert of the CTN91 Committee of ISO standards (2018). Founder and Scientific Director of Vision R&D (first spin-off of the University of Valladolid). Lines of Research: Diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, vitreous substitutes, cell therapy for retinal diseases. Patron of the RetinaPlus Foundation, Spanish Ophthalmological Society Foundation and Jimenez-Arellano (University of Valladolid) Foundation.

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"GPCR-based therapies. GLP-1 in diabetic retinopathy"

Rafael Simó
Head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service
VHIR - Hospital Vall d'Hebron (Spain)

Dr. Rafael Simó is the Director of Diabetes and Metabolism Research Unit at Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Head of the Endocrinology Department at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, and Professor of Medicine & Endocrinology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His group belongs to CIBERDEM (the Spanish network for the research of diabetes and associated metabolic diseases). Prof. Simó has authored over 200 articles related to diabetes which have been published in high-profile peer-reviewed journals, besides 12 book chapters. He has participated in 22 research projects related to diabetic retinopathy and in 28 projects related to clinical diabetes. Prof. Simó is the Coordinator of the European Consortium for the Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy (EUROCONDOR) (HEALTH-2011-FP7-278040). This consortium (constituted by 19 partners all of them leaders in diabetic retinopathy from 8 different countries) was funded by the EC for developing the first clinical trial using neuroprotective agents topically administered to prevent or arrest the development of diabetic retinopathy. In addition, Prof. Simó is the Diabetologist of Expert Committee on Diabetic Retinopathy and Vascular Diseases of the EVICR.net (European Vision Clinical Research). Prof. Simó is President of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes-Eye complications (EASD-ec), and renowned worldwide for his contributions to the pathophysiology of diabetic complications, in particular diabetic retinopathy. Prof. Simó received the Spanish Society of Diabetes Award (Rodríguez Miñón Award-2008) for a career in the field of Clinical Research in Diabetes, the “Dr. Josep Trueta” Award of the Academy of Medical Sciences from Catalonia (2011) for his innovative contributions in Biomedicine, and the Award of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology (2015) for the development and consolidation of a high-quality research group.

Animal Health

17:15 - 18:00

Chairperson:

Belén Barreiro
General Manager
Ingenasa (Spain)

Belen is a Veterinarian from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and she has been involved during all her professional life in Biotechnological companies related with Animal Health, initially in Zeltia to move in 1994 to Ingenasa, company in which she currently holds the position of managing director. She actively participates in many professional associations being the vice president of Diagnostic for Animals and member of the board at Asebio and Avedila.

Speakers:

"Waiting for the “big one” alternative to antibiotics?"

Juan José Infante
CSO
ADL Bionatur Solutions (Spain)

Dr. Juan José Infante leads innovation and creation of new intelectual property as Chief Scientific Officer at ADL Bionatur Solutions. In the private biotech sector for the last 11 years, Dr. Infante has been mainly involved in development of biotechnological drugs for immune modulation and prevention of infectious diseases in animal health, one of the main strategic areas of ADL Bionatur Solutions.

Kym Anthony
Board Chairman and Interim CEO
Avivagen (Canada)

Mr. Anthony has extensive experience in capital markets, agriculture and life sciences. Mr. Anthony initiated and built Top Meadow Farms. At its height, the Top Meadow Group was the largest purebred breeder in Canada and the largest integrated “All-Natural” Beef program in Canada, with operations in Ontario and Saskatchewan. Mr. Anthony has received many awards for his contributions to agriculture from Canada and France.

Mr. Anthony serves as the Chairman of Top Meadow Investments and formerly served as Chairman and CEO of TD Securities and Vice-Chair of Toronto Dominion (TSX - TD), President and CEO of National Bank Financial (TSX- NA). Mr. Anthony also worked in Investment Banking and ran Fixed Income and Derivatives with CIBC/Wood Gundy (TSX- CM).

"Emerging Animal Health Opportunities under the umbrella of One Health"

Theo Kanellos
Director – Strategic Alliances
ZOETIS (Ireland)

Theo Kanellos qualified as a veterinarian from the Aristotle University of Thessalonica in Greece and has been awarded an MSc in microbiology and PhD in molecular medicine from the University of London. He also has a business diploma from the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce de Paris (ESCP). During his career he worked as a clinician, an academic, a governmental official and for the last fifteen years as part of the management within the Pharmaceutical Industry where he has held several strategic roles. He has managed research laboratories, business development transactions, scientific and multi-functional alliances teams and programmes in several organisations that have led to the spinoff of biotechnology companies, the award of significant scientific grants, the founding of major strategic partnerships and the registration and licensing of successful commercial products and services. In his current role in Zoetis he establishes business transactions and entrepreneurial partnerships with companies, VCs, universities, and governmental institutions, internationally.

Welcome Reception (Location: The Real Venta de Antequera. Avenida de Jerez Nº54 , 41014 Sevilla)

19:00 - 21:30

FORO CAPITAL PYMES - Mediterraneo Room

Foro Capital PYMES - 8 excellent companies present to Foro Capital Pymes investors

11:00 - 14:00

Organised by :

Foro Capital Pymes, entity awarded by the European Commission as the best proposal in Europe for alternative financing for SME companies, will offer to 8 selected companies, the opportunity to present their investment proposals to the investment community, composed of Venture Capital, Family Office, Capital Risk, Corporate ...

Each company will have 10 minutes to present their investment proposal plus a round question of 5 minutes.

Companies that want to submit to investors in the forum, should download the executive summary form at www.forocapitalpymes.com and send it filled to be evaluated by the Selection Committee at empresas@forocapitalpymes.com.

Requirements:

Exclusive for Biotechnology companies and Health Sciences (biology, medicine, biomedicine, biochemistry and biodiversity)

Offer an acceptable profitability in the Medium Term.

Have a demonstrable route in technological development or research or with a turnover of around € 0.5M.

Be in search of between 0.5 and 10 M €.

Scalable projects with clear plans for growth and / or expansion.

About Foro Capital Pymes:

Foro Capital Pymes is an entity that organizes meetings between Spanish SMEs and investors. The most important national and international investors come to the forums (Family Office, Venture Capital, Venture Capital, corporate, etc.) and also financing entities.

In the 37 editions held in Madrid and Barcelona they have presented 274 companies and 535 investors have attended. Financing agreements are being closed in each of the forums held. To date, the entity has obtained funds of more than 25 million euros for participating companies.

Forum Promoters: MAB, Barcelona Stock Exchange, Madrid Stock Exchange, Keiretsu Forum, Enisa, Chambers of Barcelona and Madrid, Junta Andalucía, Caixa Fórum, ICF, Avalis, among others.

FINANCE & INVESTMENT PROGRAM - Italica Auditorium

Finance your innovation through non-dilutive funding

10:00 - 11:00
Start-ups presentations

11:00 - 12:00
Welcome remarks & institutional inauguration Italica Auditorium

12:00 - 13:00
Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:00
Early Stage Financing & impact investment in biotechnology

14:15 - 15:15
Start-ups presentations

15:15 - 15:45
Plenary Session - Italica Auditorium Marta Alarcón Riquelme, Head-Area of Medical Genomics (Genyo)

15:45 - 16:15
Big-Pharma presentations

16:15 - 17:00
Corporate vs Private VC: differences, similarities & sinergies

17:00 - 18:00
Welcome Reception (Location: The Real Venta de Antequera. Avenida de Jerez Nº54 , 41014 Sevilla)

19:00 - 21:30

BREAKOUT SESSIONS - Ronda Room

Is there a way out of the dementia maze?

10:45 - 11:45
Welcome remarks & institutional inauguration Italica Auditorium

12:00 - 13:00
Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:00
Milestones and Current Challenges in Advanced Therapies

14:15 - 15:45
Plenary Session - Italica Auditorium Marta Alarcón Riquelme, Head-Area of Medical Genomics (Genyo)

15:45 - 16:15
Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:00
Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:00
Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:00
Biobanks: structures at the service of research

16:15 - 17:15
Big Data & Biomedical Research

17:15 - 18:00
Welcome Reception (Location: The Real Venta de Antequera. Avenida de Jerez Nº54 , 41014 Sevilla)

19:00 - 21:30

BREAKOUT SESSIONS -Bahia Room

Agrobiotechnology forum

10:00 - 12:00
Welcome remarks & institutional inauguration Italica Auditorium

12:00 - 13:00
Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:00
Foodbiotech & Bioprocess

14:15 - 15:15
Increasing the value of your Asset: considerations for Phase I hybrid trials

15:15 - 15:45
Plenary Session - Italica Auditorium Marta Alarcón Riquelme, Head-Area of Medical Genomics (Genyo)

15:45 - 16:15
New therapeutic approaches in ophthalmology

16:15 - 17:15
Animal Health

17:15 - 18:00
Welcome Reception (Location: The Real Venta de Antequera. Avenida de Jerez Nº54 , 41014 Sevilla)

19:00 - 21:30

FORO CAPITAL PYMES - Mediterraneo Room

Foro Capital PYMES - 8 excellent companies present to Foro Capital Pymes investors

11:00 - 14:00