More than 100 prominent leaders representing the life sciences industry, academia, leading payer and provider organizations, and the venture capital community came together for a two-day summit in Pittsburgh, Pa., to discuss the importance of creative partnerships across key stakeholder groups to accelerate health care innovation.
Hosted by UPMC Enterprises and the Center for Connected Medicine at UPMC (CCM) on Sept. 9-10, the second-annual Top of Mind Summit: Life Sciences featured a series of thoughtful and engaging panel discussions and networking events for attendees to explore the summit theme of “Partnering for a New Era of Medicine.”
Leaders from UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh were joined by executives from top organizations across the health care ecosystem, including AstraZeneca, Broad Institute, Casdin Capital, Lightstone Ventures, Memorial Hermann Health System, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, PharmaLogic, RA Capital Management, Takeda, Ziff Capital Partners, and more.
The format allowed for up-close and personal interactions between panelists and audience, thus facilitating action-oriented conversations about how health systems such as UPMC can more effectively collaborate with industry and how public and private stakeholders can successfully partner to advance a region’s attractiveness for life sciences investment.
Topical panels explored a range of important topics, including clinical trial excellence, the evolution of biomarker discovery in drug development and clinical care, how we can leverage AI to improve therapeutic discovery, and how to manage manufacturing, supply chain, and clinical testing challenges for novel, advanced therapeutic modalities.
The Summit also featured a pre-event session dedicated to the importance of addressing barriers to providing equitable and quality care to women. The Women’s Health @ Top of Mind session drew approximately 70 participants for focused discussions on solutions that can improve research, funding, and access for women’s health care.
In addition to the overall core Summit theme of partnering, several key themes emerged organically from the discussions:
- The increasing importance of data-driven decision-making to advance innovation and patient care.
- The need to break down silos between health care stakeholders such as pharma, payers, and providers.
- The necessity of big data and the rise and adoption of artificial intelligence tools in advancing clinical trials and facilitating patient recruitment.
“I think the conversations we’ve had in the last couple of days will hopefully be the start of a changing of roles as payers engage with providers, the pharmaceutical industry engages with payers, and we all think about changing the paradigm in terms of how we provide care,” said Matthias Kleinz, Executive Vice President at UPMC Enterprises, who led a summary discussion with Jonathan Peacock, Chairman of UCB, BlueSphere Bio, and Avantor.
Watch for a recap report highlighting the full Summit program and key learnings, which UPMC Enterprises and the CCM will publish in the coming months.
Next Steps
- See the full program from the Top of Mind Summit: Life Sciences.
- Learn more about the Translational Sciences focus area at UPMC Enterprises.
- Read the recap report from the 2023 Top of Mind Summit focused on life sciences.
