National News
John Hopkins Carey Business School Plans Workshop on Attracting Investors to Research Projects
By
Apr 19, 2010, 16:54

The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School is planning a day-long workshop on methods for making research projects attractive to potential investors.

Scheduled for Thursday, April 29, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the university’s Downtown Center, 10 N. Charles St. in Baltimore, the Pre-Clinical Translational Research Workshop is designed for professionals involved in public or private research in the academic, pharmaceutical, and biotech fields.

Carey officials say the event should also appeal to venture capitalists, “angel” investors, professionals with responsibilities as in-house corporate or patent counsel, and representatives of state and federal research-funding agencies.

Phillip Phan, a Carey professor and the business school’s vice dean for faculty and research, as well as the lead organizer of the workshop, explains why an exploration of translational possibilities might prove beneficial to pharmaceutical companies, for example.

“Many of them are facing the dreaded ‘patent cliff,’ when expirations are not being replaced by promising drugs in the pipeline,” Phan said. “These companies are fighting back with legal strategies to extend patents or prevent the intrusion of generics. However, the long-term solution is to improve the translational research pipeline by ensuring robust funding streams.”

Two keynote presentations will take place during the workshop – by Barbara Slusher, chief scientific officer in the Brain Science Institute’s NeuroTranslational Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and by Dr. Allen D. Roses, director of the Deane Drug Discovery Institute at Duke University.

In addition, two panel discussions of research strategies will feature experts from higher education, private industry, and the legal profession.

The event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registration is $50, which includes the cost of breakfast, lunch, a closing reception, and parking.

To learn more about the Pre-Clinical Translational Research Workshop, visit the Carey Web site at http://carey.jhu.edu/landing_pages/trans_research