Paris, France – October 5-6 2015
PharmaBoardRoom had the pleasure of attending the sixth Innovation Days Conference as a media partner, at Cité Universitaire in Paris.
Each year, Innovation Days welcomes participants from the pharma, biotech and medtech sectors for a two-day conference, with networking and one-on-one partnering meetings.
Organized by Universal Medica Group and with over 460 participating institutions, it brings together a diverse set of healthcare stakeholders to explore groundbreaking trends through original, innovative and strategic discussions and debates.
First Day Program
On the first day of the conference the participants discussed the management of strategic alliances at a keynote session featuring Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Sanofi and AbbVie.
They also discussed major deals and partnership transactions between pharma, biotech and healthcare at a plenary session with case studies from successful biotech companies like Innate Pharma, MorphoSys, Adocia and Sensorion.
Universal Biotech Innovation Prize
The highlight of the event was the Universal Biotech Innovation Prize Awarding Ceremony, which highlighted global success stories in life sciences innovation.
The six finalists were selected from 136 entrants by a distinguished guest jury, including representatives from Institut Pasteur, the French National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche), the European Commission and Big Pharma like Servier and GlaxoSmithKline.
The two winners were selected based on their achievement in four areas: innovation, intellectual property, industrial feasibility and human resources.
Pixium Vision, a French biotech company, is developing best-in-class innovative Vision Restoration Systems (VRS) that aim to significantly improve the independence, mobility and quality of life of blind patients with functional optic nerves.
Procyrion, is a first-in-class device developed by a Houston biotech company in order to treat chronic heart failure. Its procedure is designed to replace major surgery and a lengthy hospital stay with a minimally invasive outpatient procedure.
One of the winners, Procyrion, raised USD 10 million immediately after the event, most of which have been allocated to first-in-human trials planned for the first half of 2016, with a clinical pilot study envisioned for 2017.
