Hi all,
There are 3 inter-related meetings HBV being held this September in Toronto, Canada. Registration for all 3 meetings is at https://www.hbvmeeting.org/registration/. Details are:
The International HBV Meeting. Sept. 26-30. Both in-person and virtual. This is the premier annual meeting on HBV biology and early-stage translational studies. It is where most initial scientific discoveries on HBV are reported. It is a very technical working meeting of scientists, but community members are very welcome if they’d like to wade through the dense jargon we scientists have a bad habit of using all the time. Fees are: US$500 for in-person attendance and US$199 for virtual attendance.
The ICE-HBV Symposium on the science behind combination therapy for chronic HBV. September 30. In-person and virtual. This will be a meeting of leading HBV scientists, thought leaders, and pharmaceutical company scientists to discuss science-based rationales for combining drugs with different mechanisms of action to optimize efficacy and increase cure rates. It will be partly a technical working meeting of scientists, partially an opinion-based discussion, and partially a policy discussion. This is FREE to community members, but the website has not yet been updated to reflect this change. I’ll get that fixed.
The ICE-HBV and Hepatitis B Foundation Patient Forum. September 30. In person and virtual. This is a community-focused event where the concerns of the patient community will be discussed and highlights of the International HBV Meeting will be presented at a layperson’s level. There will be significant attendance at the Patient Forum by the HBV scientists who attended the main scientific meeting to promote communication with the patient community. Everyone is very welcome!
There was a request submitted through the HepB Community forum to expand access of community members to the scientific sessions in Toronto. In response, the ICE-HBV Governing Board eliminated fees for the ICE-HBV Symposium for community members.
The HBV Meeting Scientific Advisory Council had a long discussion about reducing the fees at the International HBV Meeting for community members. We chose not to reduce the fees for two reasons: First, this is a very intense scientific meeting (frankly, I’m exhausted from concentrating that hard after the meeting each year). That intensity is essential for the scientific community to grapple with the very difficult issues associated with trying to cure HBV. All of the sessions are highly technical, and there are no parallel public policy or community health sessions that would be more accessible (and likely more interesting!) to community members. The second reason is that The International HBV Meeting is not part of a larger scientific society and needs to be financially self-sustaining. It is funded by attendee fees, fund-raising from industry groups, government grants, in-kind assistance from the Hepatitis B Foundation, and occasional philanthropic donations. The Meeting’s funds help subsidize the ICE-HBV Symposium, and the Public Forum is supported by a combination of funds from the Meeting, ICE-HBV, and the Hepatitis B Foundation.
These issues aside, everyone involved in the International HBV Meeting wants to emphasize that community members are very welcome to attend the meeting if they want to do so. As one Scientific Advisory Council member put it: We don’t work on HBV for our egos, but to help the patient community.
