Andrew Jack, Pharmaceuticals Correspondent, Financial Times

Ian Read, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Pfizer

With the re-election of President Obama, the focus of healthcare reform moves from the realm of policy to implementation. While uncertainty remains regarding the impact of appropriation and funding for reform, what is certain is that reform will fundamentally transform the way the life science and broader healthcare industry operates and adds value. The reforms will significantly alter the payer landscape. They will re-energize CER, and will bring into being new cost sharing entities such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) with the power to influence the demand for life science products and services. What are the direct and indirect implications of reform for key stakeholders-payers, life science companies, healthcare providers, investors and patients? How are stakeholders adjusting to a world in which value rather than product becomes to new battleground/arbiter of competition? 

• What are the implications of the reforms for the R&D and commercial strategies of life science companies?
• How are the reforms impacting payer strategies? Will we see consolidation in the search for scale and negotiating power? To what extent are CER/value considerations already impacting payer contracting strategies, and what is the evidence they are using to underpin their formulary decisions?
• What are the innovative pricing, patient access and alternative payment models for the new era or value and outcomes?
• The new stakeholders: ACOs-threat or an opportunity for life science companies? Can required cost saving be made in an ACO model without restricting access to drugs? What are the models, and what have the outcomes/lessons of the early pilots been? 
• What could the affect of appropriation /sequestration be on the industry? What elements of reform may still be vulnerable to the political process? What lies ahead for Medicare-the key to sustainable cost containment?  
• How well understood are the new value parameters to the financial community, and how might they affect future industry valuations?

With their large populations, rising income levels and expanding healthcare infrastructures, emerging markets will continue to play a central role in the diversification and growth strategies of life science companies. Yet a number of factors - slowing growth in China, a new wave of protectionism in India, Brazil and Russia, and a growing preference for generics over their more expensive branded counterparts - have recently combined to force a rethink among many life science companies of their approaches to these markets. Faced with these challenges, many are now setting their sights beyond the now maturing BRICs to the a new set of fast-growing countries (Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam and Argentina among them) where levels of growth and the volume of potential sales are attracting close scrutiny.

• How are the dynamics of the emerging markets changing and what can we expect in the years ahead? 
• Which markets beyond BRICs that hold the greatest promise for growth? What are the specifics of these markets, the drivers for growth, and the unmet needs?
• What are the approaches/innovative models for accessing and serving these markets effectively and profitably?
• How is the value story impacting the emerging markets and what impact could it have in the longer term?
• What emphasis should the industry place on these markets as a source of innovation?
• What can we learn from emerging markets that could usefully be applied to life sciences/healthcare practices and strategies in the developed world?

• What are the drivers and potential benefits of convergence for drug developers, device manufacturers and diagnostic companies?
• How are regulatory and reimbursement frameworks evolving to keep pace with both combined products drug-diagnostic co-development?
• How can the economics of drug-diagnostic co-development be improved to incentivize further innovation?
• Convergence strategies: what are the challenges in creating convergent solutions (e.g. IP, skills, marketing, manufacturing, organizational structures, allocating risk and rewards) and the critical factors for success?
• What is the likely impact of convergence on industry growth and healthcare costs? Will we see convergence between pharma and diagnostics? Can the independent diagnostic company survive?

Colin Hill, CEO and Co-Founder, GNS Healthcare

Amy Schulman, Executive Vice President and General Counsel; Business Unit Lead, Consumer Healthcare, Pfizer

• From corporate venturing and option funds to capability and service bartering, what are the emerging models? Which models should be applied in which situations and what are the attendant challenges?
• To what extent are these new models improving the returns on external R&D?
• What is the potential for such deals to alter the relative balance between pharma, biotechs and CROs?
• What is the role and what are the prospects for pharma-pharma collaboration to address innovation challenges? What form could such collaboration take (e.g. sharing capacity in manufacturing, salesforce, etc)?
• What are the potential new models for such collaboration (for instance specific disease focused clusters, etc)?

Andrew Jack, Pharmaceuticals Correspondent, Financial Times