I recently posed a simple question to members of the Life Science Leader magazine editorial advisory board — what is the best leadership advice you ever received. I received a flurry of responses which will be published in our popular “Ask The Board” monthly feature in upcoming issues. By Rob Wright

I had the opportunity to ask Bill Tente, VP of manufacturing and regulatory affairs for Humacyte and a 30-year veteran of the biotech industry, a few questions to gain a better understanding of some of the issues which surround the manufacture of biologics.

Daphne Zohar is the founder and managing partner of PureTech Ventures, a Boston-based venture creation firm specializing in translating breakthrough research from top tier academic institutions into therapies that will impact human health and well-being. A successful entrepreneur, starting her first company at the age of 16, Zohar has been recognized as an influential and innovative force in biotech. She recently sat down with me to share some of her life science industry insights, and PureTech’s approach to creating companies and looking at problems in a different way

When I interviewed David Meeker, M.D., CEO of Genzyme for the October 2012 cover feature article, the focus was on how the company was helping Sanofi to break free from the blockbuster model. However, during our conversation, Dr. Meeker shared that one of the most difficult lessons learned in his career was failing a patient community by not being able to provide an  adequate drug supply.

This year’s International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering’s (ISPE) annual meeting was held in Washington, DC (November 3 – 6). If you are a pharmaceutical executive, you might think this show could be of little value to you, to which I say, “Oh, really?” By Rob Wright

To fly to this year’s CPhI Worldwide (CPhIww) conference, held October 22-24 at the Messe in Frankfurt, Germany, is about an 8 hour flight from New York. For the Life Science Leader team, by the time we hit the ground and headed straight to the show, we had been traveling for nearly 20 hours. But this is an important show, boasting over 34,000 attendees from 140 countries and 2,200 exhibitors. By Rob Wright

Lilly Research laboratories (LRL) opened doors to a select group of media for a rare behind-the-scenes tour of three new innovation labs.

Robin Smith, M.D., CEO of NeoStem, strikes up a conversation about stem cell research benefits with one of the largest, wealthiest organizations that are very publicly against embryonic stem cell research – the Roman Catholic Church.

The process of creating a public-private partnership (P3) can be very challenging not only due to the size of the organizations involved (NIH), but the navigation of academic and government-institution policies and procedures for brokering a partnership can be a labyrinth.