On Thursday, June 24, Southeast Life Sciences hosted the virtual SE Color Pitches and Women@SLS Conference that featured a dynamic group of presenters and speakers discussing some of the biggest challenges that women and minorities continue to face in the industry today.
Here are some of the key insights and takeaways from this year’s event.
SE Color Pitches Summary
Keynote with Dr. Melanie Ivarsson
Dr. Melanie Ivarsson, Senior Vice President & Chief Development Officer with Moderna, kicked off the SE Color Pitch event in a fireside chat with Dr. Jayne Morgan, Executive Director of the Covid Task Force at Piedmont Healthcare.
Melanie and Jayne started with an overview of Melanie’s career, spanning her childhood to her current position at Moderna. Melania recounts her childhood through her PhD and path to Moderna. She makes a note to compare her parent’s education opportunities, particularly for her mother, stating that education for women has moved “from a luxury, to being in the room but the minority, to where we are today.”
The discussion then turned to Moderna’s path from a relative start up to creating one of the most important products in our lifetimes. When Melanie first started at Moderna she was told that she would work on a “side project” on Covid, but within three weeks it would become the focus of the company.
Moving on, Melanie and Jayne discussed Moderna’s leadership role in health equity in their Covid vaccine clinical trial, finishing with the highest percentage of minority enrollment of any company. Melanie noted, “ you don’t have to be one of the big giants to be the one who changes the way we do things”
There was much more to the fireside chat, so be sure to watch it all here.
SE Color Pitches
The meeting continued with seven presentations from minority-led organizations based in the southeast. The winner of the event and the $10,000 prize was TruGenomix, led by Charles Cathlin. You can see the TruGenomix pitch here.
To view all of the presentations, check out our YouTube page.
Women@SLS
Mentorship vs. Championship
Deanne Kasim, Executive Director of Health Policy for Change Healthcare, touched on the key differences between having a mentor and having a champion in the workplace during her opening keynote. While mentors are always good to have, champions go above and beyond when it comes to your success. In addition to sharing advice and giving guidance as a mentor, champions are there to open doors for you and put your name in the running, playing a much more active role in your success.
“Men have evolved into natural champions and I feel like they’ve had more opportunity to do so, while women have become aces at mentoring each other,” Deanne explained.
So, how do we cross-pollinate these roles and connections between men and women? Deanne’s number one answer was networking, whether it be in-person or online. Opportunities are increasing for women in the life sciences despite the fact that it’s still a male dominated industry, so it’s crucial to continue moving forward and challenging biases by building a community of allies for the current and future generation of leaders. You can watch the opening keynote here.
Finding the right seat at the table
Tiffany Wilson, President & CEO of The Science Center, moderated the panel discussion on expanding the representation of women in the boardroom. Although there is some room for improvement in the number of women on life sciences boards, there are opportunities out there.
Tara Kochis-Stach, Slone Partners President, shared that networking is critical to find these kinds of opportunities. Being bold about what you want to do and reaching out to the people that can help you get there will create opportunities for yourself. However, making sure you’re joining the right board for you is just as crucial.
“Don’t pick whatever board offers you a position just because you want to be on a board,” stated Valerie Darling, CEO & Chief Business Officer of Life Science Management Consultants. “It needs to match with your lifestyle and current job in terms of time commitment.”
Arlene Morris, Board of Director Member for the MUSC Foundation for Research & Development, also suggested, “Interview with everyone on the board to make sure you gel with them and get along. If you know people on the board already, reach out to them to see what the environment is like.”
Identify the champions of your technology, and fast
The panel discussion on what early-stage companies should know as they begin sourcing their first customers, moderated by Jesse Goodwin, PhD, featured insights from Vice President of Client Success at Pieces Technologies Lehanne Doyle, Senior Director of Clinical Operations at Moterum Technologies Lauren Rashford and ASKBio CEO Sheila Mikhail.
Lehanne stressed the importance of finding several key champions in the facility to help support the change in process when your new technology is implemented. Identifying the procurement or IT personnel is also critical, as projects can easily fail because they weren’t involved early on.
Lauren agreed that relationship management is key during this process. Finding these individuals that will be doing the day-to-day tasks and having their support will help leverage and drive your technology through the system smoothly. Click here to watch the full panel.
Breast cancer treatment has come a long way, but there is always room for improvement
This year’s conference ended with a closing keynote on the evolution of care and opportunities for improvement in breast cancer, featuring presentations from Regina Hampton, MD, FACS, Medical Director of Breast Center at Doctors Community Hospital, and Nikki Jensen, Vice President at Essentially Women.
While Dr. Hampton illustrated the progress made in breast cancer treatment with the shift to patient-centered care and the passing of the Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act in 1998, Nikki touched on some of the necessary steps that have not yet been taken when it comes to fully protecting and accommodating breast cancer patients and survivors. This includes breast prostheses and how they have not yet gotten the same treatment from the CMS that other breast cancer treatments have received. Watch the closing keynote in its entirety here.
Southeast Life Sciences would like to thank everyone who participated in or attended this year’s SE Color Pitch/Women@SLS Conference, and the event sponsors who made it all possible. If you were unable to attend the live event, visit our YouTube channel to watch the recordings.