By Dennis M. "Mickey" Flynn
President
Pennsylvania Bio

Next week, on Thursday March 11th, the Pennsylvania Bio Community will again come together for our annual celebration of the industry's innovation, of leadership, and of community. It's our Association's premier event, and if you haven't yet purchased your ticket, there's a little time left to do so, and this year it's an event you definitely don't want to miss.

Spirit of the Dinner

We are proud at Pennsylvania Bio to have developed a tradition of events that showcase the continuum of the industry in the Commonwealth and provide great networking opportunities that allow members of our community to make new contacts. But we also work hard to infuse throughout everything we do the great spirit of innovation that we find in Pennsylvania. As a backdrop to all of the change that is happening in the economy and in the industry is the constant notion that if we value innovation and we value our creative thinkers and entrepreneurs, we will continue to succeed. This is what our annual dinner is all about.

Hubert J.P. Schoemaker Leadership Award

Our signature award for leadership is the Hubert J.P. Schoemaker Leadership Award. Dr. Schoemaker, co-founder of Centocor and Garnet BioTherapeutics (formerly Neuronyx), was a visionary for the industry and for the region. The Schoemaker award, sponsored by Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc., recognizes an outstanding leader in the biosciences community who best exemplifies the spirit of innovation in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The recipient is determined by Pennsylvania Bio's Board of Directors, and past recipients of this award include Frank Baldino, chairman and CEO of Cephalon; David Holveck, CEO of Endo Pharmaceuticals; Jean-Pierre Garnier, former CEO of GlaxoSmithKline; and Joseph Scodari, former worldwide chairman, pharmaceuticals, for Johnson & Johnson.

This year, we're very pleased and excited to add to the list of leadership honorees Brenda D. Gavin, partner, Quaker BioVentures.

Quaker BioVentures is a venture capital firm with $700 million under management, dedicated to investing in life science companies in the Mid-Atlantic region and contiguous states. Prior to co-founding Quaker, Brenda served as president of S.R. One, Limited, GlaxoSmithKline's venture capital arm, and general partner of EuclidSR Partners, an independent venture capital fund focused on healthcare and information technology. During her tenure with S.R. One, Limited, Brenda was responsible for dozens of venture and strategic investments, and she served as a board member or active board observer for many portfolio companies.

In addition to her responsibilities at Quaker, Brenda serves on the board of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA, the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority, Innovation Philadelphia, BioAdvance, the Penn State University Research Foundation, the International Advisory Board of the Monell Institute and past board member of the National Venture Capital Association.

Honoring Leadership for the Industry

Pennsylvania Bio celebrates vision and leadership at the annual dinner, presenting awards to a Federal Public Official of the Year and a State Public Official of the Year. At our 2010 Annual Dinner, we're very pleased to add two additional awards: the CEO Award and the Scientific Achievement Award.

For 2010, we are proud to honor Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. and State Representative Doug Reichley with our Federal and State Public Official of the Year Awards.

Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. has been a critical champion of health care in the United States Senate through his position on the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee. The Senator has been a key voice on biosimilars legislation, ensuring a proper balance among key principles of extending access and competition, providing for patient safety and incenting innovation.

Representative Reichley has been a leading voice in the Pennsylvania General Assembly for the biosciences. He is a founding co-chair of the House Life Sciences Caucus and has been a strong advocate for greater funding for emerging companies and has worked diligently to ensure patient access to medicines in state programs.

We look forward to continuing to work with both of them on the issues ahead.

Our first-ever CEO Award will be given to Paul Touhey, president and CEO of Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc. (FDI). The CEO Award recognizes an outstanding CEO of a therapeutic, device or diagnostic company in the Pennsylvania bioscience community whose accomplishments has resulted in significant milestones for his or her company and has contributed to the overall advancement of the industry in the commonwealth. This is a peer honor, as nominations are made by bioscience company CEOs in Pennsylvania.

As President/CEO and member of the Board of Directors of FDI, Paul has demonstrated all of the characteristics of the CEO award, and he serves as a great example for other CEOs to follow. At FDI, Paul is responsible for the company's growth and business direction in the competitive in vitro diagnostics industry. He brings more than 25 years of industry experience to the position, in which he is responsible for the company's growth in the competitive in vitro diagnostics industry. Paul is also a member of the Board of Directors of Fujirebio Inc., the Tokyo-based parent of FDI. Paul joined FDI, formerly Centocor Diagnostics, in 1985, where he has held a variety of positions including Senior Vice President of Operations. Prior to FDI and Centocor, Paul worked for Johnson & Johnson in a variety of positions with increasing levels of responsibility and management.

Pennsylvania Bio's Scientific Achievement Award recognizes a scientist in the Pennsylvania biosciences community who has demonstrated outstanding achievement by advancing scientific knowledge, innovation, and/or patient care.

The first recipient of this award is Jill Giles-Komar, Director, Cell Biology of Centocor Research and Development, Inc. Ms. Giles-Komar discovered two human monoclonal antibodies, Simponiô and Stelaraô that were approved for marketing in 2009. She isolated both antibodies, which are groundbreaking biologics for the treatment of autoimmune disorders, and led the primary characterization process which ultimately led to their development and approval. It is not often that a researcher discovers a single drug that makes it to market, and for Ms. Giles-Komar to have discovered two that were marketed within the same year is highly-unique and extraordinary.

We look forward to celebrating all of these accomplishments on March 11th.

Celebrating Community

This dinner is ultimately about our communityóour imagination, our collaboration, our innovation. It's a theme developed for BIO 2005 and it's one that holds true today. We celebrate this at our annual symposium with BioNJ, we celebrate it at events throughout the year, and we come together at our annual dinner to continue to remind ourselves that our community is more important than ever. It's important to patients everywhere who depend on that next breakthrough. It's important to the citizens of Pennsylvania who rely on our industry as an economic engine.

We hope that we will see you on March 11th and at other events throughout the year. All of the information is on our website at www.pennsylvaniabio.org.

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