Every November the Cambridge Healthtech Institute hosts a portfolio management conference for the life sciences industry that spans both operational and strategic portfolio management. We find it to be the best portfolio management conference in the U.S., and to steal a page from movie critics, “If you only go to one portfolio conference this year…” The speakers are very good, the interactive breakout sessions facilitate terrific, focused discussions, and the CHI staff does an excellent job running the conference.
Highlights from the 2011 conference:
- Beau Bush from Johnson & Johnson gave an excellent talk on how portfolio management is playing a growing role in shaping their company’s strategy.
- Grant Morgan from Allergan presented an effort he championed that has successfully aligned future resource needs with their R&D pipeline.
- I spoke about emerging best practices in project valuation and portfolio management, focusing on the trends that enable portfolio groups to impact high-stakes R&D decisions.
Full disclosure: We are a sponsor of this year’s conference, and we will be speaking on “Using Portfolio Management to Effectively Manage (and Not Manage) Innovation.”
