Join the experts in a discussion on early-stage R&D

Earlier today I was chatting with Harvard's Omid Farokhzad, an academic investigator who's teamed up with MIT's serial entrepreneur Bob Langer on a pair of biotech startups, about the various elements needed to get a new biotech company set up, financed and in the clinic. Farokhzad is big on teams, especially when it comes to choosing just the right CEO to run the new operation.

Of course, he added, "in Cambridge, people know how to do this really, really well."

That's one reason I'm glad we're headed back to Boston with the last FierceBiotech Executive Breakfast of the year. Getting through the Valley of Death with early-stage research work is one of the biggest challenges in biotech. And we have some of the world's greatest experts on the subject to discuss just that. In addition to Farokhzad, we've already announced that Peter Mueller, Vertex's R&D rock star, will be joining Doug Williams from Biogen Idec and Stephen Knight from Fidelity to discuss the most efficient approach to early-stage R&D work. Also, I'm happy to report that we just recently confirmed that Tom Hughes, the Novartis research veteran who went on to launch Zafgen, a fledgling biotech following its own distinct game plan for an obesity program, will be joining us as well.

I hope you can join us. We'll be opening up the event to questions from the audience, and we already have a good group of biotech execs registered. Please join us. You can register here. - John Carroll, Editor, FierceBiotech