Confirmed Speakers and Moderators

Roger Beachy, President, Danforth Plant Sciences Center
G. Steven Burrill, CEO, Burrill and Company
Joseph Cortright, Impresa Inc./Brookings Institution
Arthur Daemmrich, Director, Center for Contemporary History and Policy, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Ted Everson, Historian of Biotechnology, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Dennis M. "Mickey" Flynn, President, Pennsylvania Bio
Peter Lennox, Group General Manager ICT, Biotechnology, Americas, for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Lara Marks, Senior Research Director, Silico Research
Donna Gentile O'Donnell, Managing Director, Eastern Technology Council
Joseph D. Panetta, President, BIOCOM San Diego
Ivor Royston, Cofounder, Hybritech
Phillip A. Sharp, Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Arnold Thackray, President, Chemical Heritage Foundation


Roger Beachy is president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri. He previously held academic positions at Washington University in St. Louis and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Beachy’s research includes projects to reduce virus infection in plants via biotechnology and studies of control of gene expression in plants. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Microbiology and a member of several professional organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences. He has received several awards for his work, including the Wolf Prize in Agriculture.

Through the Danforth Center, Beachy has committed significant effort to research in developing countries, including through private-public partnerships. He is also involved in a variety of efforts to rationalize regulations that control commercialization of agricultural biotechnology.

View a PDF of Beachy's presentation (3.6M).

G. Steven Burrill is one of the original architects of the biotechnology industry and one of its most avid and sustained developers. He currently serves as chairman of the board of Pharmasset; he is also a member of the boards of directors of Catalyst Biosciences, DepoMed, Targacept, Phytomedics, and Proventys. Prior to founding Burrill & Company in 1994, Burrill spent 28 years with Ernst & Young, directing and coordinating the firm's services to clients in the biotechnology, life sciences, high technology, and manufacturing industries worldwide. In 2002 Burrill was recognized as a biotech investment visionary by Scientific American magazine.

Burrill founded the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation and currently serves as its chairman and CEO. He is also chairman of the Campaign for Medical Research, the leading American advocacy group for National Institutes of Health funding and support. Burrill serves on the boards of directors for the Bay Area Science Infrastructure Consortium, BayBio, the California Healthcare Institute, Exploratorium, the Kellogg Center for Biotechnology, Research!America, the National Health Museum, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as the advisory boards of the industry newsletters Washington Drug Letter and BioExecutive International. He is chairman of the San Francisco Mayor’s Biotechnology Advisory Council. Burrill is a member of The World Bank’s Out of the Box group and an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

View a PDF of Burrill's presentation (6.7M).

Joseph Cortright is an economist with Impresa, a Portland consulting firm specializing in regional economic analysis, innovation, and industry clusters. He is also a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and chief economic analyst for the Oregon Business Plan, a multiyear private sector–led effort to develop the state economy. In addition Cortright performs economic research for CEOs for Cities, a national organization of urban leaders. He is the author of three publications on industry clusters published by the Brookings Institution.

Cortright served for 12 years as executive officer of the Oregon Legislature’s Trade and Economic Development Committee. He is currently a member of the Oregon Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors, the editorial board of Economic Development Quarterly, and the American Economics Association. Cortright is cofounder and editor of EconData.Net, the Web’s leading guide to regional economic data. He is a graduate of Lewis and Clark College, and he holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

View a PDF of Cortright's presentation (516K).

Arthur Daemmrich is the director of the Center for Contemporary History and Policy at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF). He earned a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Cornell University. The projects Daemmrich supervises at CHF bring long-range perspectives to bear on key issues in innovation, globalization, risk, health, and environmental policy.

Daemmrich has held fellowships from the Social Science Research Council/Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and CHF. He has published on biotechnology policy and politics, the sociology of medicine, and pharmaceutical drug regulation. Daemmrich is editor or author of three books: Reflections from the Frontier—Explorations for the Future: Gordon Research Conferences, 1931–2006 (2006); Pharmacopolitics: Drug Regulation in the United States and Germany (2004; winner of the 2006 Edward Kremers Award from the American Institute of Pharmacy History), and R&D Meets M&A: Proceedings of the 2003 Conference on Innovation and Creativity in Chemical R&D (2004).

Ted Everson is the program manager for biotechnology studies at the Chemical Heritage Foundation's Center for Contemporary History and Policy. The program examines the history of the health biotechnology industry in the United States and internationally and uses this historical perspective to explore contemporary and emerging innovation, health, globalization, and environmental policy issues in biotechnology.

Everson earned a Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science and technology from the University of Toronto and an M.S. in medical genetics from the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Approaches to Heredity: A Concise History of the Gene (2007), "Genetic Engineering Methods" in The Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Technology (2004), and "Genetics and Molecular Biology" in History of the Exact Sciences and Mathematics (2002).

Dennis M. "Mickey" Flynn is president of Pennsylvania Bio, the statewide trade association representing Pennsylvania’s biosciences community. Flynn previously served as president of Puresyn, a privately owned separation and purification technology company that develops, manufactures, and markets products and services utilized in purification of gene-based drugs and vaccines. He was also executive vice president and chief operating officer of Berwick Corporation, a life sciences company, and president and CEO of Legend Pharmaceuticals, a nationwide cooperative for independent drug retailers. Flynn has also held sales and marketing positions with the Rorer Group; he began his career in the pharmaceutical industry with Warner Lambert Corporation.

Flynn has served as a member of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s (BIO) Emerging Companies Committee, and he is a past member of the Board of Directors for BioAdvance, the Biotechnology Greenhouse of Southeastern Pennsylvania. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York.

View a PDF of Flynn's presentation (187K).

Peter Lennox is group general manager at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, New Zealand’s national economic development agency. As such he is responsible for operations in North and South America, the Biotech and ICT sectors, and the International Beachheads program.

Lennox was previously director of biotechnology networks for Scottish Enterprise, the national economic development agency of Scotland. He spent five years in New York working for Scotland’s Foreign Direct Investment Agency. In addition he headed up Scottish Trade International, the UK government export agency, and he has extensive private-sector experience working in the food and beverage business. Lennox holds scientific degrees from Queens University, Ireland, and Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, as well as an M.B.A. from Glasgow University.

View a PDF of Lennox's presentation (854K).

Lara Marks was educated at Sussex University and Oxford University, where she earned a doctorate in the history of medicine. Marks has held full-time research and teaching posts at Queen Mary College, London University; London School of Hygiene; and Tropical Medicine and Imperial College, London. She currently holds a visiting post at Cambridge University, and she is a senior research partner for Silico Research Limited, an independent organization that studies the life sciences industry.

Marks's current research concerns the history and structure of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. She is cowriting a biography of Hubert Schoemaker, cofounder of Centocor. She is also studying the early history of the biotechnology health-care industry, researching the origins of monoclonal antibody drugs and the challenges they have posed for pharmaceutical regulation, and researching the impact financial conflict of interest regulations have on the interaction between academia and the life-sciences industry. Marks’s publications include Sexual Chemistry: An International History of the Contraceptive Pill (2001) and “Assessing the Risk and Safety of the Pill: Maternal Mortality and the Pill,” a chapter in Risk and Safety in Medical Innovation (2006).

View a PDF of Marks's presentation (334K).

Donna Gentile O'Donnell is managing director of the Eastern Technology Council, which enhances Philadelphia's biotechnology and research industries through key life science initiatives. She is also a special limited partner in PA Early Stage Partners and serves as an appointee of the Pennsylvania Senate to the Tobacco Health Research Advisory Committee. She was recently appointed to PNC Bank’s Women’s Financial Services Network Advisory Board. Prior to her leadership role with the technology council, O'Donnell was the Deputy Health Commissioner of Policy and Planning for the City of Philadelphia.

O’Donnell is former president of the Board of The Franklin Health Trust. She now serves on the Board of Trustees of Drexel University and the Drexel University College of Medicine. A commentator in local, regional, and national media venues, O’Donnell writes the column “Biopharma Beat” for the Technology Times and is the author of Provider of Last Resort: The Story of the Closure of the Philadelphia General Hospital (2005). She received a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied history in applied public policy.

Joseph D. Panetta is president and CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of BIOCOM, the southern California advocacy association. Panetta began his professional career with the Environmental Protection Agency. He previously held positions at Pennwalt and Mycogen, where he developed safety and efficacy data and obtained U.S. and worldwide regulatory approvals for the first genetically engineered microbes and crops. He also served briefly as global leader of government and regulatory affairs for the Plant Sciences Division of Dow AgroSciences.

Panetta serves on several boards of directors and advisory boards that address issues pertinent to biotechnology. He has been recognized for his advocacy work by the American Academy of Pharmaceutical Physicians and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. Panetta’s association involvement has included the CropLife America Biotechnology Committee and serving as founding member of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s (BIO) International Biotechnology Forum. He is currently chairman of the BIO Council of State Biotechnology Associations. Panetta holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, and a master’s degree in industrial and environmental health from the University of Pittsburgh.

View a PDF of Panetta's presentation (3M).

Ivor Royston is a founding managing partner of Forward Ventures, a San Diego life science venture capital firm. From 1990 to 2000 he served as founding president and CEO of the nonprofit Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, where he remains a member of the Board of Trustees. From 1978 to 1990 he was on the faculty of the medical school and cancer center at the University of California, San Diego.Royston cofounded both Hybritech, San Diego’s first biotechnology company, and IDEC Corporation, which later merged with Biogen to form Biogen Idec. He is chairman of Morphotek and Targegen and serves on the boards of directors of Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Corautus Genetics, and Favrille.

Royston has authored more than 100 scientific publications. In 1994 he received the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for San Diego. In 1997 President Clinton appointed him to a six-year term on the National Cancer Advisory Board. Royston was inducted into the San Diego Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in 2006. Royston received bachelor’s and medical degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and completed postdoctoral training in internal medicine and medical oncology at Stanford University.

View a PDF of Royston's presentation (5.5M).

Phillip A. Sharp is Institute Professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served as founding director of the institute from 2000 to 2004. Sharp was previously director of the Center for Cancer Research at MIT and head of the Department of Biology. Sharp’s landmark work provided one of the first indications of the startling phenomenon of “discontinuous genes” in mammalian cells, a discovery that earned him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Sharp has authored more than 350 scientific papers, and his work has earned numerous cancer research awards and presidential and national scientific board appointments. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the recipient of the 2004 National Medal of Science and the 2006 inaugural Double Helix Medal from Cold Spring Harbor Labs. Sharp cofounded Biogen (now Biogen Idec); Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, an early-stage therapeutics company; and Magen Biosciences, a biotechnology company developing agents to promote the health of human skin. He serves on the boards of all three companies. Sharp earned a B.A. from Union College, Kentucky, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois.

Arnold Thackray is president of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Thackray majored in the physical sciences before turning to the history of science; he received a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1966. He has held appointments at Oxford University, Cambridge University, Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1983 Thackray received the Dexter Award from the American Chemical Society for outstanding contributions to the history of chemistry. He served for more than 25 years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the founding chairman of the Department of History and Sociology of Science and is currently the Joseph Priestley Professor Emeritus.