Las Vegas, NV -- (SBWire) -- 01/02/2012 --Iain Dukes, Vice President, External R&D at Amgen is a Panelist in “Panel Discussion: Trends in Oncology Drug Development” at the Oncology Partnering and Deal-making Conference to be held on February 27-28, 2012 in Las Vegas, NV by GTC.

Panel Discussion: Trends in Oncology Drug Development
Topics to be covered:

• Oncology business opportunities for partnerships (who, what. why)
• Trends in favorable deal structures to off-set / discharge risk
• Are specialty pharma companies or platform companies better positioned for partnering in the current pharma market?
• Will the lack of an IPO window prevent innovation?
• Are pharma pipelines too full to allow for sufficient “partnering” capital to fund innovation at small biotech companies?
• Are venture capitalists still interested in oncology or are other therapeutic areas preferred?
• How will innovation starvation impact the industry going through lean years – new paths to genuine innovativeness (beyond incrementalists)?
• Are there signs scarcity value is driving distorted valuations for first-in-class innovation? If so, how does one compete in this environment on modest treasury reserves?

The Oncology Partnering & Deal Making Conference is a partnering and business development conference that gives global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies an opportunity to network with high-level executives from top pharma and various biotech/pharmaceutical companies, as well as explore potential collaborations, and learn about relevant issues in Oncology and partnerships that will affect the industry. This event also provides a unique venue for attendees to learn about Oncology business development trends, market, and novel technologies that shape up the industry.

The top companies and experts in the Oncology field will come together to discuss the latest discoveries, technologies and partnership opportunities from their organization. Companies include Array Biopharma, A&G Pharmaceutical, Amgen, Astellas Pharma, Aveo ¬¬¬¬¬¬Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eisai , Eli Lilly, Endocyte, Epizyme, Epic Sciences, Micromet, Novartis, OncoMed, Pfizer , Plexxikon , Pullan Consulting, QIAGEN, SAIC-Frederick, Seattle Genetics, Third Rock Ventures, YM Biosciences, and many more!

The conference is part of the Targets and Strategies in Drug Discovery Summit, which consists of 4 tracks including the 2nd Ubiquitin Research and Drug Discovery , 4th Ocular Diseases & Drug Discovery , and 3rd Cancer Targets and Therapeutics Conference.

For more information, please visit http://www.gtcbio.com