Bill Gates to address BioAsia in fireside chat with KTR

Hyderabad, Feb 18 Microsoft co-founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates will speak about the road ahead for life science and healthcare industries at BioAsia 2022, beginning from February 24.

Gates will engage in a fireside chat with Telangana's Industry and Information Technology Minister K T Rama Rao during the virtual event.

The fireside chat will be around a range of themes including the Covid-19 pandemic, learnings during the past two years, emerging healthcare trends, and what can be done to strengthen the global healthcare system going forward.

The 19th edition of BioAsia, the largest annual global Biotechnology and Life Sciences convention of Asia, will see the participation of prominent leaders from the life sciences and healthcare industry.

Alex Gorsky, Executive Chairman, Johnson & Johnson and Geoff Martha, Chairman & CEO of Medtronic, will address the participants at the two-day event.

"I am delighted that the 2022 edition of BioAsia will feature some of the most influential and visionary leaders. I look forward to an interesting session with Gates to assess the industry's current position and determine the roadmap ahead. The delegates of BioAsia across the world would also benefit by listening to Gorsky and Martha who come with immense knowledge around the global life sciences industry," said Rama Rao.

Bill Gates is known for his incredible philanthropic contributions through his foundation, and for his keen interest in technology, science, and emerging challenges such as climate change. In addition to sharing lessons learnt from the pandemic, Gates will also talk about the milestones achieved by the global partnership and the road ahead.

With this year's theme being 'Future Ready' the focus of the chat will be on the new approaches and capabilities that can equip the world to be prepared and what is the role of stakeholders including the government, industry, etc.

Alex Gorsky, Executive Chairman of the world's largest healthcare company Johnson & Johnson, would deliver the keynote address during the event. Gorsky was also serving as the CEO of the company until recently and under his leadership of over 3 decades, Johnson & Johnson was consistently recognized as one of the most innovative and best managed companies in the world.

Gorsky is also a member of the board of iconic global organisations including Apple and IBM, as well as the Wharton School of Business. He will share his perspectives around topics of importance for the life sciences industry like impact of the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, innovation ecosystem and start-ups, role of new technologies within healthcare such as AI, ML, Deep Learning etc, among others.

Another prominent leader, Geoffrey S. Martha, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic will also keynote in this year's event. Medtronic is the world's leading medical technology company, with $29 billion in annual revenue, more than 90,000 employees, and operations reaching more than 150 countries worldwide.

Martha will address BioAsia attendees on the global trends in the medtech sector including the role India and Asia can play in the global efforts to accelerate the medtech growth.