Discovery on Target 2013 – Keynote & Exhibit Hall Passes Available Now

NEEDHAM, Mass. - Aug. 27, 2013 - PRLog -- Needham, MA - Cambridge Healthtech Institute has announced that complimentary keynote and exhibit hall passes are available until September 13, 2013 for Discovery on Target, the industry’s preeminent event on novel drug targets.  The event will be held September 24-26, 2013 at the Westin Waterfront in Boston, MA.  Uniting more than 700 scientists/technologists, executives, directors, and managers from biopharma, academic, and healthcare organizations, Discovery on Target delivers the industry advancements and connections needed for the discovery and exploitation of new drug targets.

Attendees of Discovery on Target 2013 will gain first-hand insight from two notable keynote presenters on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 25:

Stuart L. Schreiber, Ph.D., Director, Chemical Biology, Founding Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator; Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University
Presentation: Towards a Patient-Based Drug Discovery

Small-molecule drugs were originally discovered using compound-based drug discovery: opportunistic discovery of a biologically active compound, often a natural product (e.g., penicillin) followed by a search for a disease that might be treated with the compound. This remains a common approach to modern drug discovery (e.g., rapamycin and analogs for use as antifungal agents; immune suppression agents; anticancer agents; possibly others in the future). The advent of recombinant DNA accelerated a second approach - target-based drug discovery - where the therapeutic target is selected and subjected to methods that yield candidate drugs (mechanism-based design; structure-based design; screening). But this approach has its shortcomings - 97% of drug candidates that enter into clinical investigation eventually fail, many due to unanticipated toxicity and many others due to a lack of efficacy despite successful modulation of the target. Selecting therapeutic targets based on information derived from surrogates of patients has proved challenging. Advances in human biology, including human genetics and physiology, and in small-molecule science, including chemistry and chemical biology, are now accelerating a third approach - patient-based drug discovery.

Paul L. Feldman, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, GlaxoSmithKline
Presentation: Enteroendocrine Drug Discovery for Treatment of Metabolic Diseases

The Enteroendocrine Discovery Performance Unit at GlaxoSmithKline is focused on discovering and developing medicines that mimic the efficacy of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery to treat metabolic diseases. GlaxoSmithKline's strategy emanates from the findings that there are significant metabolic benefits to obese and obese diabetic patients that undergo Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. In general, these patients experience ~30% weight loss while >80% of obese diabetics who undergo this surgery have complete "remission" of diabetes.

Complimentary keynote and exhibit hall passes are available until Friday, September 13, 2013 and can be reserved at http://www.discoveryontarget.com/dot-hallpass

About Cambridge Healthtech Institute
Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI), founded in 1992, is the industry leader in providing superior quality scientific information to eminent researchers and business experts from top pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic organizations. Delivering an assortment of resources such as events, reports, publications and eNewsletters, CHI's portfolio of products include Cambridge Healthtech Institute Conferences, Barnett International, Insight Pharma Reports, Cambridge Marketing Consultants, Cambridge Meeting Planners, and Cambridge Healthtech Media Group.