Title: What will be the State of the Global War against Metabolic Disease in 2020
Dr. Alexander Fleming
President and Chief Executive Officer
Kinexum LLC
USA
Abstract
Obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and their disease complications are on the radar screens of global leaders across the top leadership levels of
government, business, healthcare, and academia. Media focus and public awareness of these threats continue to grow. But, will the world have
substantially reversed these scourges by 2020? Without substantial changes in research and development funding, regulatory systems, and healthcare
resource allocations, innovation of therapies to treat, reverse, and prevent metabolic disease will be inhibited. Metabolic therapeutics and resulting
outcomes will not significantly change by 2020. People with cardiometabesity may be identified and treated earlier and more intensively but largely with
the therapies we have now—not those we need to have. This talk will focus on lesions within the therapeutic development ecology and specific solutions
that can be applied. The hope is that metabolic diseases will be contained by 2020. Without action today, the reality is that little progress will be made.
Biography
G. Alexander Fleming, M.D. is President and Chief Executive Officer, Kinexum LLC, a health product development company and Chairman and Chief
Medical Officer of Exsulin Corporation. Previously, he served as Chief Scientific Officer, Ingenix Pharmaceutical Services--A UnitedHealth Group
Company and Chief Medical Officer of Boston Medical Technologies. An endocrinologist with training and research experience at Emory, Vanderbilt,
and NIH, Dr. Fleming served for 12 years at the FDA with responsibility in the therapeutic areas of metabolic and endocrine disorders, growth and
development, nutrition, lipid-lowering compounds, and reproductive indications. His responsibilities included the first biotech products - human insulin
and growth hormone. He helped to shape a number of FDA policies, procedures, and initiatives and was assigned to the World Health Organization,
Geneva, during 1991-92. Dr. Fleming was a member of the expert working groups on Good Clinical Practices and General Considerations for Clinical
Trials of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH). He was also the founder and editor in chief of the Virtual Journal of Drug Evaluation, of
FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), a major contributor to FDA's Good Review Practice (GRP) initiative, and chair of the
committee responsible for education and training at CDER. Dr. Fleming authored the book, “Optimizing Development of Therapies for Diabetes” in
addition to many scientific and public policy articles. He serves on numerous scientific advisory boards and expert committees and has served as invited
editorialist to The New England Journal of Medicine and as a commentator on National Public Radio.