Las Vegas, NV -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/19/2011 -- Jason Rhodes, Executive Vice President & Chief Business Officer at Epizyme and Michael Shih, Senior Director, Business Development at Eisai will give a featured joint presentation on “Open Innovation: Eisai and Epizyme’s Epigenetics Partnership” at the Oncology Partnering and Deal-making Conference to be held in Las Vegas, NV on February 27-28, 2012 by GTC.

Innovation: Eisai’s Strategic Partnership with Epizyme

Pharma and biotech companies are continuously seeking innovative ways to access and collaborate on potential breakthrough technologies that will bring benefits to patients and their families. Eisai’s recent strategic alliance with Epizyme – to discover, develop and commercialize therapeutics targeting EZH2, an epigenetic enzyme, for the treatment of lymphoma and other cancers in genetically-defined patients – is an example of such a collaboration. Attendees will learn how Eisai’s strategy of establishing a relationship with Epizyme’s management during Epizyme’s research stage, and how Epizyme’s strategy of finding the “right” development partner for an emerging biotech, resulted in a win-win partnership for both companies.

Jason Rhodes, Executive Vice President & Chief Business Officer at Epizyme brings extensive business leadership and investing experience and leads corporate and business development, finance, business strategy and planning, alliance management, and other business operations. He led Epizyme's recently announced partnerships with GSK and Eisai.

Michael Shih, Senior Director, Business Development, Eisai Inc. is responsible for planning, leading and managing Eisai’s U.S. business development efforts. Mr. Shih oversees the identification and management of mergers and acquisitions, licensing, co-promotions, strategic alliances and collaborations across Eisai’s core therapeutic areas of neurology and oncology.

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, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eisai , Eli Lilly, Endocyte, Epizyme, 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