On Wednesday August 10th, 2022, Biotech Connection Los Angeles (BCLA) hosted the first week of a month-long R&D discussion series over zoom. We had the opportunity to hear from panelist Rene Hubert (Amgen) and Wen-Hsuan Chang (AcuraStem), and moderator Kendra Avery (Xencor) regarding the process of Early Drug Discovery.
The panel discussion was held for 30 minutes in which topics surrounding how new chemical entities are identified and studied from the regulatory affairs to early stages of drug development. Panelists gave examples of their experience and approach on developing different kinds of drugs and even shared how they were able to bring a drug to market.
Following these discussions panelists participated in an audience Q&A where they answered questions from the attendees. Overall, this session resonated around differences between big pharma vs startups, soft skills that required to exist in biotech and pharma, prior education levels before entering the industry and panelists’ personal experiences and advice within the industry.
We would like to thank the panelists and the moderator for taking their time to be with us, as well as our sponsors. Additionally, we would like to thank all the attendees for supporting our series and engaging in the discussion with their questions. We look forward to seeing you at BCLA’s next week’s R&D discussion panel about ‘Manufacturing’.