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Conference Brings Attendees to ‘Epicenter of Precision Medicine’

A major medical technology conference will bring thousands of executives to San Diego in October, a nod to the region’s lofty standing in the health tech industry.

The event is hosted by AdvaMed, or the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a trade group based in Washington, D.C., that represents 80 percent of the medical technology firms in the country. The conference, scheduled for Oct. 5-7, will bring together 1,000 companies for business development, capital formation and technology showcasing.

Last year’s conference in Chicago drew over 2,000 attendees from 30 countries, and event organizers expect increased attendance this year.

Landing the event in San Diego puts the region prominently on the map for medical technology.

“San Diego is establishing itself as the epicenter of precision medicine and improving the way diseases are identified, prevented and treated for decades to come,” said

Sara Radcliffe, president and CEO of the California Life Sciences Association. “Hosting AdvaMed 2015 here in San Diego allows us to showcase that leadership.”

San Diego’s Sector

San Diego has long been known for its health technology sector, an industry that emerged from the city’s historic excellence in science and technology. Global leaders in health technology call San Diego home, including the world-renowned, genome-sequencing firm Illumina Inc. and multibillion-dollar medical device maker DexCom Inc., which recently inked a deal with Google’s new life science division.

The region’s medtech sector is growing, according to Joe Panetta, president and CEO of the San Diego-based life sciences group BIOCOM, and its economic impact to the region is substantial.

“The medical device and diagnostic equipment manufacturing clusters deliver over $21 billion in total economic activity to the Southern California economy supporting over 102,000 jobs,” Panetta said in an email. “It is a sector that continues to see overall growth year after year in dollars and innovation. The opportunities to access talent, innovation and technology in Southern California are a few reasons why AdvaMed will host its medtech conference here.”

Agenda and Highlights

The three-day conference features multiple panel discussions on hot topics such as integrating wearable technology into medical devices and cybersecurity as it concerns health data. Panelists include expert executives from the industry, including representatives from Qualcomm, Medtronic, CareFusion Corp. (BD), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The event also includes an entrepreneurship boot camp, a medical device development course, and an event highlighting women leaders in medtech, among other programming.

San Diego’s Dr. Eric Topol, a leading cardiologist and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, will deliver a plenary session on Oct. 6 on the impact of digital medical technologies on the future of health care.

Topol is the author of the bestselling books “The Patient Will See You Now” and “The Creative Destruction of Medicine,” editor-in-chief of Medscape, and a professor of genomics at The Scripps Research Institute.

“Digital innovation is a key driver in the medical technology industry, impacting everything from regulation to investment and patient care, and Dr. Topol is a revolutionary leader in this space,” said Ray Briscuso, managing partner and producer of the AdvaMed 2015 conference.

“We look forward to hearing Dr. Topol’s perspective on the future of medtech and how patients are more in control of their own treatment than ever before thanks to digital technologies.”

Innovation Contest

The conference will also host the final round of an innovation contest called the Medtech Innovator. The competition is hosted by AdvaMed in partnership with Tucson, Ariz.-based RCT Ventures.

The competition is narrowed to four finalists: Briteseed, MedAware,

MobileODT and uBiome. The finalists have developed innovative medical technologies to diagnose diseases, prevent errors and increase patient safety and overall health.

The final round of the MedTech Innovator competition will be held at

7 a.m. Oct. 7. The finalists will compete for the audience’s vote and $300,000 in awards and prizes from Becton

Dickinson, RCT Ventures and Johnson & Johnson.

The AdvaMed 2015 conference will be housed at the San Diego Convention Center, 111 W. Harbor Drive.

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