Fenwick & West Symposium Brings Personalized Medicine Experts to King Hall
The third annual symposium in the Technology, Entrepreneurship, Science, and the Law (TESLaw) series sponsored by Fenwick & West brought a large audience of attorneys, industry professionals, academic experts, students, and alumni to King Hall for "Personalized Medicine: Getting the Prescription Right" on November 5.
Highlights of the event included remarks from keynote speaker Kathryn Lowell, California Deputy Secretary for Life Sciences and Health Systems, and a panel discussion that touched on the recent federal court ruling in the landmark patent suit Association for Molecular Pathology v. United States Patent and Trademark Office. The panel featured Mark Capone, President of Myriad Genetic Laboratories and Barbara Brenner, Executive Director of Breast Cancer Action, who are key figures from opposing sides of the litigation. Video of the panel and other events from the symposium can be viewed by following the link below.
Following introductory remarks from Dean Kevin R. Johnson and Fenwick & West Partner David Bell, Lowell explained that personalized health care is care "that fits the individual, ushered in by the sequencing of the human genome, enhanced by the furtherance of new biological technologies." The data produced by new technologies is being translated into knowledge that enables care givers to tailor treatments to the specific genetic and molecular characteristics of patients, resulting in an increased ability to administer the "right drug, right patient, right dose, right time," and in many cases to avoid disease altogether. "There is a fundamental belief that health care can trump disease care," Lowell said.
Personalized health care can both reduce costs and improve treatment, said Lowell, who was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Business, Transportation, and Housing (BT&H) Secretary Dale E. Bonner to develop policy and strategic initiatives to advance the California-based health and life science market. California is in position to be a leader in the field, she said, and described her work with the Personalized Health Information Technology Task Force (PHIT), a collaboration between BT&H and the California Council on Science and Technology that is conducting a pilot study of the ways in which personalized medicine can be applied to breast cancer treatment.
The symposium also featured a series of panel discussions, beginning with a morning session on "From the Lab to the Patient: Intellectual Property in Personalized Medicine," moderated by Professor Peter Lee and featuring panelists Capone, Brenner, Clinton Neagley, Associate Director, UC Davis InnovationAccess - Technology Transfer Services; and Michael Shuster, Partner, Fenwick & West. The panel marked a rare opportunity to hear executives from opposing sides of Association for Molecular Pathology v. United States Patent and Trademark Office discuss the suit and related patent issues.
Following the noon keynote address was a panel on "Issues for Entrepreneurs in the Nascent Industry," moderated by Stephen Graham, Partner, Fenwick & West; with panelists Rowan E. Chapman of Mohr Davidow Ventures; Marc Hellerstein, co-founder of Kinemed; and Garrett Vygantas, Entrepreneur-In-Residence/Director, Venture Group, Burrill & Co. The final panel, "Consumers in the New Personalized Medicine Model," was moderated by Professor Lisa Ikemoto and featured Sandra Soo-Jin Lee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford Medical School; Beatrice O'Keefe of the Laboratory Field Services at the state Department of Public Health; and Michael Wilkes, Vice Dean of the School of Medicine and Director of Global Health, UC Davis Health Systems. Among the King Hall faculty in attendance were Associate Dean Vikram Amar and Professors Afra Afsharipour, Alan Brownstein, and Anupam Chander.
The TESLaw Lecture Series, generously sponsored by Fenwick & West, is a five-year program of annual symposia focused on providing practitioners, academics, and students with the knowledge base to successfully address the challenges inherent to the computing, digital communications, social media, "clean" technology, and life sciences and biotechnology markets of the 21st century.