Speakers:

Joshua Boger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA)

Stephen P. A. Fodor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Affymetrix, Inc. (Santa Clara CA)

Francis Fukuyama, Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University (Fairfax, VA)

Seán P. Lance, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chiron Corporation (Emeryville, CA)

Mark Simon, Managing Director and Head, Life Sciences Investment Banking, Robertson Stephens (San Francisco)

Moderator:

Martin Greenberger, Senior Fellow, Milken Institute, and IBM Professor, The Anderson School at University of California, Los Angeles

Summary:

Biotechnology and related life science research is the technological revolution that will shape the beginning of the twenty first century. In this session, the moderator, Martin Greenberger, led the panel in a discussion of the recent history, the current state of the art, and the potential benefits and challenges posed by these technologies. Mark Simon described the recent financial performance of the biotechnology industry, which he characterized as having "terrific top line growth."

Joshua Boger characterized the biotechnology industry as producing an order of magnitude increase in new therapeutic opportunities, however, in order to take advantage of these opportunities, a new paradigm for drug discovery and development is necessary. This is due to the immense costs currently expended by pharmaceutical companies in bringing new products to market. Sean Lance pointed out some of the short-term socio-economic impacts of the new therapeutic technologies, specifically, the challenge of pricing and availability of these new products across socio-economic levels throughout the world. Francis Fukuyama highlighted the longer-term political implications of biotechnology such as increased understanding of causation relationships between genomic and higher level behaviors, life extension, and genetic engineering.

The entire panel predicted future developments and challenges for the industry. These issues included price controls on future therapeutic products, high costs of drug development, and the importance of protecting intellectual property and patents. Fukuyama proposed the need for a stronger regulatory structure in order to guide developments and insure the commercial viability of life science technologies and products. While both the opportunities and potential risks of biotechnology were discussed, Stephen Fodor suggested that biotechnology was similar to any new technology in that society must ultimately decide the pace and direction at which development of new products and technologies should proceed.

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