The fourth edition of the biotechnology investor forum, BioInvest 2009, organized by The Association of Biotechnology Led Entrepreneurs (ABLE) will be held in Mumbai on November 5. The event has been designed to ascertain the future of investment and partnerships in the country’s biosciences space. BioInvest 2009 is viewed as the industry’s platform for investments and will have a panel of discussions on funding options.

The industry leaders, VC and PE and corporate funding experts will help to provide an insight on the future investment possibilities. Industry heads will discuss the opportunities and the challenges faced in innovation.

Further through the ‘I-Connect’, a networking tool, the participants from the pharma-biotech can identify and enter strategic partnerships, according to ABLE.

Soon after the introductory remarks by Dr Vijay Chandru, president, ABLE, the session will commence with Dr Steve Arlington, partner, Global Pharmaceutical and Life Science Advisory Services leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers (UK), who will address on ‘Challenging Business Models – Which path will you take?’. This will be followed by James C Greenwood, president BIO (USA) who will provide the global outlook and India’s role in the biotech.

There will be a panel discussion on Partnering Perspectives – Emerging Trends &
Shapes. The deliberation will focus on partnering & alliances opportunities from Intellectual Property, sharing risk and explore other avenues to generate revenues which include monetizing assets, licensing opportunities &services. Dr Steve Arlington is the moderator of the discussion.

This debate will be carried over by Mukta Arora, director, Global Sourcing & External R&D, Eli Lilly India Pvt Ltd, Sri Mosur, CEO, president, Global Drug Discovery & Development, Jubilant Biosys, Alan Eisenberg, executive vice president, Emerging Companies & Business Development, BIO, Ajay Gambhir, director of Patent Development, Intellectual Ventures India and François Mandeville, executive vice president - Marketing, Technology-Strategy, Strand Life Sciences.

The ABLE Luncheon panel discussion covering the ‘India Innovation Story’ will be moderated by Dr Chandru. The speakers will be Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD, Biocon, Dr K K Narayanan, MD, Metahelix Life Sciences, Dr Villoo Morawala Patell, founder-CMD, Avesthagen Limited, Nitin Deshmukh, CEO, Kotak Private Equity, Shrikumar Suryanarayan, CEO, Biomedical Cluster, Sujay Shetty, associate director, Pharma Life Sciences Advisory & Corporate Finance, PricewaterhouseCoopers.