Jeremy Barton VP at Pfizer to speak at Cancer Targets meeting, Feb 27-28, 2012, Las Vegas

Dec. 31, 2011 - PRLog -- Jeremy Barton, Vice President of Precision Medicine at Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development, is giving a Keynote presentation entitled “Patient Selection Strategies for Targeted Therapies and Implementation into Clinical Study Designs” at the 3rd Cancer Targets and Therapeutics Conference to be held on February 27-28, 2012 in Las Vegas, NV by GTC. Also presenting at the conference is C. Glenn Begley, Vice President, Global Head of Hematology and Oncology Research at Amgen on “Challenges in Translating Preclinical Research into Benefit for Patients”.

Dr. Barton will discuss how the last decade has seen the emergence of personalized medicine in the practice of oncology. In contrast to the empiric approach of the previous fifty years where patients received non specific cytotoxic drugs which affected both normal tissue and tumor and which were administered without regard to tumor characteristics, increasing knowledge of tumor biology has lead to more effective discovery of drugs which target putative underlying drivers of malignancy. The mantra is now “deliver the right drug to the right patient” based on the molecular profile of the disease and/ or the genetic makeup of the patient. The expectation is that the modest improvements in efficacy which have been the norm, will be dramatically improved as patients are treated with drugs that have been selected for them based on the characteristics of their disease.

The success of this approach will be determined by a variety of factors. Firstly does the drug target a true oncogenic driver of disease and is it the major driver – or do others exist which would suggest combination treatment. Secondly can patients be accurately selected for treatment- what (bio)markers exist which identify those who are more or less likely to respond to treatment or experience adverse events. Thirdly will the pathway to registration for a drug and an accompanying companion biomarker assay become more transparent and streamlined.
Dr. Barton’s presentation will focus on the challenges faced by implementation of a personalized medicine approach and strategies for successful development of targeted therapies

Participants will hear Dr. Barton discuss:
• An overview of what exactly personalized medicine is
• A critical review of where the field currently stands
• Thoughts on what progress needs to be made
• Understanding of the challenges facing those working in the area

Jeremy Barton obtained his Batchelors degree in Physiological Sciences from Oxford University and then graduated from University College Hospital Medical School, London. After training in Internal Medicine he specialized in Clinical Oncology in the UK achieving Specialist status in this area. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (Oncology).

In 1992 he joined the pharmaceutical industry and in the last 19 years has held a variety of positions in the field of Oncology as well as running his own consulting company.

Currently employed as the Vice President of Precision Medicine at Pfizer WRD, his special interests are the interface between late Research and Early Development through to Proof of Concept.

The 3rd Cancer Targets and Therapeutics examines new and emerging targets and therapeutics in the area of cancer research. Speakers at the event provide case studies of emerging targets in order to address some of the issues surrounding target-based drug discovery and development. This conference gives global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies as well as academia involved in the field of cancer an opportunity to network with high-level executives from large Pharma, directors and head scientists from top research institutes, and leaders of drug discovery and development in biotech industries.  Companies and institutions presenting at this conference includes, Pfizer, Amgen, Celgene, Johns Hopkins University, Novartis, NCI/NIH, Galena Biopharma, Astex Pharmaceuticals, University of Southern California, Zalicus and many more.

The conference is part of the Targets and Strategies in Drug Discovery Summit, which consists of the following 4 co-located conferences:

2nd Ubiquitin Research and Drug Discovery
4th Ocular Diseases & Drug Discovery
Oncology Partnering & Deal-Making Conference
3rd Cancer Targets and Therapeutics

For more information, please visit www.gtcbio.com

# # #

GTC organizes conferences specifically for the biomedical and biopharmaceutical industries. Our goal is to facilitate the exchange of biopharmaceutical and biomedical intelligence between industry leaders, academic and government organizations, and the financial community.

GTC (Global Technology Community), LLC, is a privately held company founded in 2002.