To read the full recap, click here.
It is a pleasure to provide a summary of the highlights from the 13th annual Chief Medical Officer Summit 360°, April 7-8, 2025, in Boston, MA.
Day One opened with Tufts CSDD’s Ken Getz Annual Trends in Drug Development Keynote, focused on macro-level development conditions impacting clinical R&D, trends that increase risk and cost of development and opportunities to optimize clinical development. BIO’s SVP of Federal Government Relations Aiken Hackett, walked the audience through the impact of new policies on biotech, including tariffs, DOGE, drug pricing and user fee negotiations. Throughout the morning, panels and presenters addressed balancing simplicity with complexity in clinical trial protocols, utilizing AI to streamline clinical development and increasing operational efficiency.
Day Two began with Dr Priya Singhal, Biogen, who spoke about her career journey and how the CMO role has evolved post-COVID and shared her framework for making clinical investment decisions to prioritize development, reduce failure rate and improve speed and efficiency. HC Wainwright & Co’s Vice Chairman, Head of M&A and Strategic Advisory Services, Michael Meyers, spoke how investors evaluate CMOs, trends they were seeing in biotech capital markets activity, M&A and licensing trends, and an outlook on the future of life sciences BD. PhRMA’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Michael Ybarra, gave an update on the key policies covering IP and drug pricing, and provided a roadmap for how CMOs could leverage their scientific and clinical backgrounds to lead patient-centric policy advocacy.
Across the two days, there were panel discussions and breakout sessions on clinical development, biotech financing and business development, regulatory and patient affairs, medical affairs and commercialization, external interactions with service providers, consultants and fractional talent, C-suite relationships, team building, and professional development for CMOs.
There were interactive sessions & roundtables on:
- Challenges and Opportunities in Cell & Gene Therapy, Oncology, CNS, Rare Disease, and Inflammation & Immunology
- Adjusting to Your First CMO Role
- Thinking Strategically About Your CMO Career
- Getting a Seat on the Board
- What a CMO Needs to Know about Becoming a CEO
- CMO Consultants and Fractional CMOs
- Make an Impact Through Storytelling
We are pleased to share highlights from the 2025 CMO Summit 360°. A huge thank you to our sponsors, advisory group, speakers, supporting partners and everyone who participated in this year’s event.
To read the full recap, click here.
