ITHACA, N.Y. -- Karen Katen, president of Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals, a division of the multinational health-care firm Pfizer Inc., will deliver the 2003 Lewis H. Durland Memorial Lecture Thursday, Nov. 20, at 5 p.m. in Kennedy Hall's Alumni Auditorium on Cornell University's campus.

Her talk, "Building Big: Leadership and the Challenges of Scale," opens the second annual Healthcare and Biotechnology Symposium, "Strategic Alliances in the Healthcare and Biotechnology Industry." The symposium takes place Friday, Nov. 21, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Sage Hall at Cornell. Both the talk and the symposium are open to the public, Katen's Durland talk is free; a small fee will be charged to attend the symposium. For details and to register, see http://hbcsymposium.com .

The symposium is co-sponsored by the university's Johnson Graduate School of Management and the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology (CAT-Biotechnology) at Cornell. The symposium is organized by the Healthcare and Biotechnology Club, a student group at the Johnson School.

"To thrive in today's complex health-care environment, companies have forged relationships that leverage research, marketing and technology expertise," said Jonathan Vervoort, Cornell MBA '04, a club member who is marketing chair for the symposium. "Some have flourished, while others have derailed." The symposium will look at successful alliances and what ingredients have led to their success, he said.

Durland speaker Katen was named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" by Fortune magazine for five consecutive years, most recently in 2002, and as well as one of Business Week' s "25 Top Executives." In the 1990s she introduced 10 innovative pharmaceuticals from Pfizer's research and development program to the U.S. market. Following Pfizer's recent acquisition of Warner Lambert and Pharmacia, Katen managed the largest integrations in the history of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. As a result Pfizer had $43 billion in revenues in 2003, nearly nine times more than in 1993.

Fred Telling, senior vice president, corporate policy and strategic management at Pfizer, opens the symposium at 9 a.m. Friday with a talk titled "Strategic Alliances in Bio Pharmaceuticals." He has been a guest lecturer at Harvard's School of Public Health and at Cornell and was a contributing author to the Institute of Medicine's series on "Technology Innovation in Medicine."

In addition to featuring prominent executives from such companies as Pfizer, Wyeth and Eli Lilly, the symposium will showcase several New York state life science initiatives and technologies jointly developed by CAT-Biotechnology and New York business partners. Kraig Adler, Cornell vice provost for life sciences, and Stephen Kresovich, director of the CAT-Biotechnology, will discuss CAT's role in the New Life Sciences Initiative at Cornell. There also will be a poster session on CAT projects, with awards granted for the best ones by a panel of judges.

Other Cornell faculty involved in the symposium include Larry Robinson, associate professor of operations management, and Bruce Ganem, the Franz and Elisabeth Roessler Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and J. Thomas Clark professor in the Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise program. Other presenters are Josh Salisbury, executive director of business development, Eli Lilly; Mike Leonetti, head of strategic alliances, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals; Michael Kamarck, senior vice president, biopharmaceuticals, Wyeth; Randy Rupp, senior vice president, Regeneron; Tim Cooke, CEO, Mojave Therapeutics; Amir Nashat, Polaris Venture Partners; and William Rastetter, executive chairman, Biogen IDEC Pharmaeceuticals.

The Durland Memorial Lecture series, which brings distinguished executives from the fields of business, finance and investment management to Cornell annually, is the most prestigious invitational talk at Cornell's Johnson School. This year it is being introduced by Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman. Robert Swieringa, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Johnson School, is introducing the health-care and biotechnology symposium Friday morning.