Interactive Breakout Discussions

Tuesday, May 9 | 4:40 – 5:40

TABLE 1: Launching Alliances Effectively
Brian Stewart, Executive Director, Global Business Development & Head Alliance Management, Apellis Pharmaceuticals
A robust launch is the most efficient way to set up a relationship for success. This group will explore some of the challenges and best practices for launching an alliance for success. 

• How, if at all, does your organization employ a systematic approach to launch alliances?
• What are the initial challenges, necessities and opportunities during an alliance launch?​
• How is the hand-off from BD to AM managed as part of the internal launch process?

TABLE 2: Creating and Managing Governance Structures in Complex Alliances
Annlouise Goodermuth, Senior Director, Alliance Management, Everest Medicines
John Moore, PhD, Associate Director – Gene Editing, 2seventy bio
Good Governance is one of the most important elements to ensuring alliance success and effective partnerships but can be particularly challenging when managing large alliances with multiple programs. This group will discuss strategies to create an effective governance structure for such alliances.

• What tactics can be employed to align internal stakeholders and promote information sharing across the organization?
• When should you consider adjusting a governance structure?
• What are the characteristics of an agile governance process?

TABLE 3:  Alliance Health Checks
Jan Twombly, President, The Rhythm of Business, Inc.
Karen Coffman, Director Alliance Management, Oncology Business Development & Licensing, AstraZeneca
Performing alliance health checks can be a key factor in ensuring ongoing success of your alliances and identifying potential issues early on.  This roundtable will  share various strategies and frameworks for performing alliance health checks and discusses steps to take post check to improve the health of your alliances. 

• What is an alliance health check and how often should the alliance management team conduct health checks?
• What framework and questions do you use?
• What are next steps to leverage information gleaned in order to improve the health of your alliances?

Wednesday, May 10 | 3:05 – 4:05

TABLE 4:  Establishing Alliance Management as a Strategic Brand in Your Organization
Jan Twombly, President, The Rhythm of Business, Inc.
David Williams, Senior Alliance Director, GlaxoSmithKline
Building your Alliance Management function so that it is viewed as a strategic and value-adding partner within your organization is a difficult task. This roundtable looks at how Alliance Management can build up its brand.

• What strategies can be used to demonstrate value throughout alliance lifecycles?
• In what ways do you measure and report alliance management activity?
• How can Alliance Management effectively communicate its value as a strategic partner in the organization​?

TABLE 5: Developing Alliance Management Key Performance Indicators: What Should be Considered?
David Vallo, Senior Director, Head of Alliance Management, Business Development & Licensing, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca
Steve Twait, President, Integrated Alliance Management LLC
This table will consider approaches to establishing KPIs to measure alliance performance and utilizing alliance metrics effectively at individual alliance and alliance portfolio levels.

• What process and tools can be used to define metrics with alliance partners?
• What metrics could be used to track actions taken to proactively mitigate business, human or legal risk in an alliance?
• Who are the stakeholders you should involve in the development, tracking, and reporting of alliance metrics?

TABLE 6: Alliance Management’s Role in Minimizing Risk and Maximizing Value Creation
Karen Coffman, Director Alliance Management, Oncology Business Development & Licensing, AstraZeneca
Many organizations strive to create a flexible, fit for purpose operational framework across the Alliances Portfolio to effectively apply resources to drive value creation. This group will discuss the importance of alliances to the organization, and best practices to drive value and minimize risk.

• What are the benefits and challenges to managing your alliances as a portfolio rather than as a series of individual alliances?
• What are the key elements across the alliance portfolio that merit Executive level attention? 
• What mechanisms and tools can Alliance Management use to assess and mitigate risk while measuring and driving alliance portfolio value?