Numerous factors are coalescing to promote the adoption of precision medicine practices around the globe, such as greater statistical power from amassed genetic research, the falling cost of data storage along with the rise of mobile technologies and wide-spread use of electronic health records. The percentage of targeted therapies has been steadily increasing in the total number of drugs approved and is proving to be the way forward. This conference will convene leaders in the precision medicine community to talk about their vision and expertise on how to accelerate biomedical discoveries and enable the accurate diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
Monday, March 7
10:30 am Conference Program Registration Open
11:50 Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
Steven M. Watkins, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, Metabolon
12:00 pm Understanding Human Physiology First, then Some Preciseness
John Todd, FRS, FMedSci Ph.D., Professor, Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge; JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, University of Cambridge
This talk will review how detailed longitudinal studies of humans will help us understanding physiology and the effects of potential therapeutics.
12:30 Metabolomis – A Functional Enhancement of Precision Medicine
C. Thomas Caskey, M.D., FACP, FACMG, FRSC, Professor, Molecular & Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine
Whole genome and exon sequencing is dependent on relational data bases and mutation character to predict normal and disease risk. We have utilized metabolomics as our first functional measure of gene integrity and predicted disease risk. It has been applied to both, pediatrician and adult cohorts with clarification of sequence changes and their effect on function. Both cohorts will be reported.
1:00 Session Break
1:15 Luncheon Presentation: FibroTx TAP and SELF: Pioneering the Potential of Topical Skin-Biomarkers for Personalized Care
Pieter Spee, Chief Technology Officer, FibroTx LLC
FibroTx has developed two platform technologies for non-invasive measurements of protein biomarkers directly from skin. TAP allows unique opportunities for product development and biomarker research. SELF is the first practical molecular point-of-care device intended for personalised skin care.
2:15 Session Break
2:30 Chairperson’s Remarks
Steven M. Watkins, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, Metabolon
2:40 The Personalized Medicine Initiative: Implementation of Molecular Medicine into Healthcare
Pieter R. Cullis, Ph.D., FRSC, Chair, Personalized Medicine Initiative, Director, Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia
The Personalized Medicine Initiative (PMI) is implementing molecularly-based medicine into the population using British Columbia as a test bed to develop validated approaches. Projects that are underway include introduction of inexpensive genetic tests such as pharmacogenomic analyses to guide drug prescription practices, or genetic analyses to personalize chemotherapy. We are also introducing a preventive medicine “Molecular You” program to develop personal Omic data clouds for early diagnosis of disease.
3:10 BRCA Challenge
David Haussler, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor and Scientific Director, UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, University of California, Santa Cruz
The BRCA Challenge of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health aims to advance understanding of the genetic basis of breast cancer and other cancers by pooling data on BRCA genetic variants from around the world. This is a pilot project of the GA4GH that, if successful, will be extended to other genes and conditions, so that we can break data out of the medical and commercial silos it is getting stuck in. We’ll discuss the methodology and current status of the project.
3:40 Revolutionizing Human Health
Brad Perkins, M.D., MBA, CMO, Human Longevity, Inc.
Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI) is building a database of integrated health records including WGS, metabolomics, and microbiome along with extensive clinical data. Machine learning is being applied to translate the language of biology as sequence data into the language of health and disease. HLI is using this database and our informatics capabilities to create new insights for the Life Sciences, Health and Life Insurance, and Health Care industries.
4:10 Presentation to be Announced
Liz Worthey, Ph.D., Chief Informatics & Product Development Officer, Envision Genomics
Every patient carries information in their genome that is relevant to their care or future care, which is the foundation of Genomic Medicine. Dr. Worthey will discuss the critical role Genomic Medicine diagnostics, tools and resources play in building the knowledge base required to understand (i.e. determine the function of) genomic sequence variants and their impact on disease treatment and overall health.
4:40 Refreshment Break and Transition to Plenary Session
5:00 Plenary Keynote Session
6:00 Grand Opening Reception in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
7:30 Close of Day
Tuesday, March 8
7:00 am Registration Open and Morning Coffee
8:00 Plenary Keynote Session
9:00 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
10:05 Chairperson’s Remarks
Edward Abrahams, Ph.D., President, Personalized Medicine Coalition
10:15 KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: Clinical Deployment of Personalized Medicine - Successes and Challenges
A. Keith Stewart, M.B., Ch.B., Carlson and Nelson Endowed Director, Center for Individualized Medicine; Vasek and Anna Maria Polak Professor, Cancer Research, Mayo Clinic
10:45 15 Years of Personalized Medicine, Can We Move Beyond Oncology?
Eric Lai, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Head, Pharmacogenomics, Companion Diagnostics, Takeda Development Centers of America
Despite the complete sequencing of the Human Genome and the development of new molecular technologies, the clinical application of personalized medicine is still mostly limited to Oncology. This presentation will discuss other potential ways of applying pharmacogenomics to drug development and the use of big research datasets to address unmet medical needs to non-oncology areas. In addition, we will discuss major roadblocks for the next 5 years and beyond.
11:00 Talk Title to be Announced
Hakan Sakul, Ph.D., Executive Director and Head, Diagnostics, Worldwide R&D, Development Operations, Pfizer, Inc.
11:15 Changing Treatment Paradigms
Greg Keenan, M.D., Vice President, Medical Affairs & US Head Medical Officer, AstraZeneca
Dr. Greg Keenan will explore what constitutes a useful companion diagnostic or biomarker, and the considerations for patients beginning or continuing a therapy over time, and exciting potential opportunities to advance medical science in the treatment of lupus, respiratory disease and other non-oncological disease states.
11:30 PANEL DISCUSSION
12:15 pm Session Break
12:25 Luncheon Presentation: Expanding Treatment Options with Genomics-Enabled Immuno-Oncology
Victor Weigman, Ph.D., Associate Director, Translational Genomics, Q Squared Solutions
Tumor genomic profiling can direct patients to new therapeutic possibilities. Positive responses aside, many patients are left with few treatment options. Genomics can further illuminate the inherently complex tumor microenvironment, with beneficial implications for Immuno-oncology strategies.
1:25 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
2:00 Introduction and Presentation: Promoting the Value of Pharmacogenomics to the Public
Alan Wu, Ph.D., Director, Pharmacogenomics Laboratory; Professor, Department of Lab Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
The implementation of Precision Medicine into daily medical practice has been slow. There are many barriers to adoption including the cost of testing, limited reimbursement practices, a paucity of randomized clinical trials demonstrating efficacy, the lack of suitable testing platforms and FDA-cleared assays, and the poor knowledge or interest among physicians. We have undergone a program to provide precision medicine to students, patients and the general public.
2:25 Pharmacogenetics Implementation in the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee - The First-Year Experience at UCSF
Joshua Galanter, M.D., Assistant Professor, Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
In the talk, I will discuss UCSF’s experience forming and implementing a Pharmacogenetics Subcommittee for the P&T committee. I will discuss the challenges that we have faced trying to incorporate evidence-based pharmacogenetics guidelines into the UCSF Medical Center policy and the electronic medical record. Lessons learned from both the successes and failures will be applied towards the committee’s plans going forward.
2:50 Trust Everyone, but Cut the Cards—A Patient’s Perspective
Jessica Dunne, Painter & Artist, San Francisco Bay Area
I will describe my experience as a breast cancer patient and how non-routine testing helped guide my treatments. This included testing of tamoxifen breakdown products such as endoxifen, showing that, for me, standard 20mg/day tamoxifen dosing yielded low quintile endoxifen levels, and that not until daily doses of 40mg/day were mid-quintile levels reached. I will discuss how different clinicians and laboratory medicine specialists were willing to help me receive precision treatments.
3:15 PANEL DISCUSSION
3:40 The Idylla™ Advantage: High Precision Medicine
Made Simple
Rudi Pauwels, CEO, Biocartis
Idylla™, Biocartis’ fully integrated, automated, real-time PCR-based
molecular diagnostics system, is designed to offer fast and easy access to
clinical molecular diagnostic information, anywhere and anytime. IdyllaTM’s first tests, the BRAF Mutation Test for metastatic melanoma and KRAS Mutation Test for colorectal cancer have obtained CE-IVD marking.
4:10 St. Patrick’s Day Celebration in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
5:00 Breakout Discussions in the Exhibit Hall
These interactive discussion groups are open to all attendees, speakers, sponsors, & exhibitors. Participants choose a specific breakout discussion group to join. Each group has a moderator to ensure focused discussions around key issues within the topic. This format allows participants to meet potential collaborators, share examples from their work, vet ideas with peers, and be part of a group problem-solving endeavor. The discussions provide an informal exchange of ideas and are not meant to be a corporate or specific product discussion.
Delivering The Promise Of Precision Medicine Via Real World Data
J. Marty Tenenbaum, Ph.D., Chairman, Cancer Commons
Piers Mahon, Ph.D., Director Global Alliances, Cancer Commons
- What types of real world data are needed for precision medicine to deliver its promise, given it will make every spectrum disease a series of rare diseases?
- What benefits can that data bring to stakeholders across the system?
- How could we change the paradigm to get these datasets built at scale?
- What sort of services and solutions need to be built around that data to transform health and innovation?
- Where should we start? Which diseases, geographies or data holders are favorable to this?
Role of Digital Health in Precision Medicine
David S. Lester, Ph.D., CEO, Management, NIESM Pty Ltd.
- Which digital health technologies will have the greatest contribution to precision medicine?
- What are the biggest challenges for success and what are the barriers to adoption?
- Who are the principal stakeholders and what are their roles in the use of digital health technologies in healthcare?
- What can we expect from Pharma in the utilization of digital health technologies and how can they benefit from it in the development of precision medicine solutions?
6:00 Close of Day
Wednesday, March 9
7:00 am Registration Open
7:00 Breakfast Presentation (Sponsorship Opportunity Available) or Morning Coffee
8:00 Plenary Keynote Session Panel
10:00 Refreshment Break and Poster Competition Winner Announced in the Exhibit Hall
10:50 Chairperson’s Remarks
Victor Velculescu, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Oncology; Co-Director, Cancer Biology, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center; Co-Founder, Personal Genome Diagnostics
11:00 Precision Medicine and Cancer Drug Discovery
Atul J. Butte, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Institute for Computational Health Sciences; Professor, Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Butte, a bioinformatician and pediatric endocrinologist, will highlight his lab’s work on using publicly-available molecular measurements to find new uses for drugs including drug repositioning, discovering new durable targets in disease, the evaluation of patients and populations presenting with whole genomes sequenced, and new work on integrating and reusing the clinical and genomic data that result from clinical trials. Dr. Butte will especially cover big data in biomedicine as a platform for innovation and entrepreneurship.
11:30 Characterization of Driver Alterations in Tissue and Liquid Biopsies
Victor Velculescu, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Oncology; Co-Director, Cancer Biology, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center; Co-Founder, Personal Genome Diagnostics
Analyses of cancer genomes have revealed mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis and new avenues for therapeutic intervention. In this presentation, I will discuss lessons learned through the characterization of cancer genome landscapes, challenges in translating these analyses to the clinic, and new technologies that have emerged to analyze molecular alterations in the circulation of cancer patients as cell-free tumor DNA. These approaches have important implications for non-invasive detection and monitoring of human cancer, therapeutic stratification, and identification of mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies.
12:00 pm Enterprise-Wide Clinical Sequencing to Match Patients to Personalized Cancer Therapies
Michael F. Berger, Ph.D., Associate Director, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Massively parallel sequencing can empower oncologists to make treatment decisions informed by the molecular composition of their patients’ cancers. We have developed and implemented a robust molecular profiling platform for use in real-time patient management at a large academic cancer center. I will discuss the large-scale clinical deployment of our platform and its utility in matching patients to clinical trials to provide investigational therapies the greatest chance of success.
12:30 Session Break
12:40 Luncheon Presentation (Sponsorship Opportunity Available) or Enjoy Lunch on Your Own
1:10 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall and Last Chance for Poster Viewing
1:50 Chairperson’s Remarks
Keith F. Batchelder, M.D., CEO & Founder, Genomic Healthcare Strategies
2:00 Longitudinal Proteomic Monitoring For Early Detection Of Disease
Jun Axup, Ph.D., Chief Operating Officer, MYi Diagnostics and Discovery
We envision a near future where comprehensive in-home biomarker monitoring can promote wellness and detect disease at its earliest signs. To get there, many technological, regulatory, and social challenges must be addressed. MYi is one such technology that can enable longitudinal personalized monitoring. Through our multiplex proteomics technology, we hope to realize point-of-care diagnostics and inform therapeutic intervention.
2:10 Use of the Digital Patient and Point-of-Care Testing to Manage RA
Mark E. Curran, Ph.D., Vice President, Immunology, Systems Pharmacology & Biomarkers, Immunology Therapeutic Area, Janssen Research & Development
At Janssen, as we search for and develop new medicines to better treat disorders, we are also developing and implementing Integrated Patient Solutions incorporating concepts around Companion Diagnostics, The Digital Patient and Point-of-Care testing. In this presentation I will highlight the key features of these disorders and describe our efforts to improve care and provide novel tools to enable patients living with disease to better manage their conditions.
2:20 A Digital Health Solution for Precision Medicine of Epilepsy
David S. Lester, Ph.D., CEO, Management, NIESM Pty Ltd
Because of the complexity of a patient’s seizure profile, clinicians are required to manage patients on a personalized level. The process is inaccurate due to the use of the patients recording their seizure activities using written or digital diaries (including apps). The difficulties in obtaining accurate personal profiles will be discussed and NIESM’s mobile health platform will be presented as a working solution. The selection of the hardware sensor platform is critical and will be discussed.
2:30 PANEL DISCUSSION
3:30 Quantitative Lipidomics in Precision Medicine
Steven M. Watkins, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, Metabolon
We have developed a fully quantitative platform for measuring over 1,000 lipid metabolites from 100uL of plasma or serum. The precision of the platform in measuring lipid classes is equal to that of standard clinical chemistry, enabling a deep and accurate investigation of the lipid molecular pathways linked to phenotype. This talk will show how deep lipid profiling can characterize dramatic individual differences in response to food, exercise and drug treatments, and reveal mechanisms driving risk for disease and response to therapy.
4:00 Session Break
4:10 Moderator’s Remarks
J. Marty Tenenbaum, Ph.D., Chairman, Cancer Commons
Realizing the potential of precision medicine requires a global ecosystem that can amass data on hundreds of millions of patients in order to identify the best therapies for increasingly rare molecular diseases. Getting there will require bold business models and innovative technology that encourage data sharing across many stakeholders. Representatives of competing cancer networks propose practical steps for sharing data, slashing costs and accelerating learning to save lives.
- Benefits and challenges of a global precision oncology ecosystem
- Review of proprietary ecosystems operated by molecular diagnostic vendors, academics, health systems, entrepreneurs, and nations
- Cross-industry learning: technologies and business models that facilitate data sharing and integrative analysis
- The important roles for national healthcare systems, patient advocacy groups, and pre-competitive consortia in catalyzing data sharing
- What steps can we take today to begin?
Panelists:
Jonathan Hirsch, President & Founder, Syapse
William S. Dalton, Ph.D., M.D., CEO, M2Gen; Director, The DeBartolo Family Personalized Medicine Institute at Moffitt Cancer Center
Piers Mahon, Ph.D., Director, Global Alliances, Cancer Commons
Brady Davis, Senior Director, Strategy & Market Development, Illumina
Lawrence H. Kushi, Sc.D., Director, Scientific Policy, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente
Pravin J. Mishra, Ph.D. Director, Precision Medicine & Genomics Core Laboratory, Intermountain Healthcare
5:45 Close of Conference Program