Christopher Tan
Executive Director BD&L, Infectious Disease, Vaccines, Oncology Merck & Co
Chris Tan is an Executive Director in Business Development & Licensing at Merck, supporting scouting and partnering across infectious diseases, vaccines, and oncology. He joined Merck in 2003 as an in vivo pharmacology scientist, later led pharmacology and discovery-biology teams in infectious diseases, and transitioned into BD&L with a remit spanning collaborations, licensing, acquisitions, and strategic alliances.
Seminars
Wednesday 9th September 2026
Pharma Icebreaker Tables: Introductions with Pharma
8:30 am
- The pharma icebreaker tables running in each track create introductions between biotech and pharma
- Two weeks out from the conference, pharma will review attending biotech and biotech will review attending pharma, with both making selection to meet with companies they haven’t scheduled meetings with yet through the One-to-One Partnering Portal
- With these selections, we will build a schedule of company rotations through each pharma’s table
- Join three tables, led by three pharma, for 30 minutes each. Mixed groups rather than 1-2-1s, hear how your peers pitch themselves whilst also getting facetime with pharma yourself, first thing on day one
Wednesday 9th September 2026
Pharma Icebreaker Panel Discussion:
7:45 am
- Which stage of development is most appealing in Immunology?
- What are the starting points, from a data package perspective, when it comes to assessing engagers or in vivo CAR-T?
- When evaluating an early-stage what level of data—whether safety, biomarkers, or efficacy—provides you with conviction that the program has true drug potential?
- Which diseases do you think are most promising for B-cell targeted therapies?
