Venkatesan Raghavan
Executive Director Search and Evaluation - Oncology Novartis
Venky (Venkatesan) Raghavan, PhD, is Executive Director, Search & Evaluation Oncology at Novartis, where he focuses on evaluating external oncology opportunities and advancing business development strategy. Prior to joining Novartis, Venky was Senior Director of Oncology Business Development & Licensing at Bayer, following earlier roles in life sciences strategy consulting at Oliver Wyman and IQVIA. His experience spans opportunity assessment, valuation, commercial and R&D strategy, with a focus on oncology and rare diseases; he holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Pittsburgh
Seminars
Wednesday 9th September 2026
Pharma Icebreaker Tables: Unlocking Unmatched Meetings
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
- What new capabilities are pharma looking for from a partnership? Are platform deals of interest?
- Glues, bifunctionals, antibody-degrader conjugates: what are the considerations when discussing these technologies? What evidence would make a DAC asset “partnerable”?
- Are there unique challenges when discussing degradation within large pharma that you don’t see when modalities have more clinical validation?
