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1 February 2005
Northbank
Communications reports on recent conferences
Northbank staff have been out and about, pounding the beat and pressing the flesh at leading events in the life science calendar in support of our clients and, of course, to meet new companies as part of our own business development efforts. Conference attendance helps keep us up-to-date with what’s going on, so here’s what we gathered since October 2004.
Biotech in Europe Investor Forum
In its fourth year, this high profile event aimed to provide an expert outlook on growth and investment activity in Europe’s biotech industry. Organised by Sachs Associates in association with Bloomberg L.P., this year’s forum, which moved from Munich to Zurich to tap into the more buoyant Swiss biotech scene, proved to be a busy networking event, attended by over 400 European and American delegates from leading investment, pharmaceutical and biotech companies. As media partners of the event, Northbank’s CEO, Sue Charles, was there to man the Northbank stand and attend presentations at the three parallel sessions by biotech companies, as well as the informative roundtable discussions and panels. The message from Pharma and big biotech to emerging biotechs was clear - "our pipelines are not full. We need innovative new products to drive our businesses forward. We are prepared to partner as early as pre-clinical for the right opportunity". From the investment community the message was less upbeat, with the majority of VCs still reserving most of their cash to support existing companies and cash for new start-ups still being in short supply.
www.sachsforum.com
BioPartnering Europe 2004 – Media roadshows for multiple clients
Techvision’s flagship European event is arguably the most important partnering event in Europe annually. It is certainly the most established and it is also the event with the largest media attendance. With the media in mind, Northbank organised a schedule of one-on-one media interviews for nine clients including PowderMed, Oxford BioMedica, Scancell, Sirenade, Integragen, Cobra, Prolysis, Vernalis and Atugen. Over the two-day period 22 individual interviews were scheduled with publications like BioCentury, Genetic Engineering News, SP2, Drug Discovery Today and In Vivo. Nearly every interview resulted in coverage and two companies scheduled releases to coincide with the event to maximise the impact. Feedback from clients conducting interviews was very positive and Northbank plans to make this media outreach an annual endeavour at BPE.
BioPartnering Europe is arguably the most high profile business development event in Europe annually for the biotech industry, and certainly the oldest. Delegate registration was 1,200 and 68 individual pharmaceutical companies were in attendance. A total of 25 emerging companies presented at the meeting and 96 had open houses. The numbers were further bolstered by the attendance of over 40 European journalists, making the event a sure-fire way to attract media attention if appropriately managed. www.techvision.com/bpe
BIOEurope 2004 - Pharma looks at early pipeline for deals
The top 10-15 pharma companies get twenty per cent of their sales from products discovered by other companies. And pundits predict this proportion is set to grow. One reason given by business development experts at last November’s BIOEurope in Cologne is Big Pharma’s increasing willingness to look at collaborations at the Phase I or even pre-clinical stage. And the money they are paying is quite generous too to wit the recent Merck/Vertex deal, $300 million for a compound that had only achieved proof of principle in vivo.
But a cautionary note comes from Dr Lynn Butler, CEO at Germany’s Sirenade Pharmaceuticals, “Even if a drug is at an early stage of development what pharma is demanding is that the mechanism of action is known. As well as in vivo and patient data, partners now insist on data on toxicity and on drug interactions. So it’s crucial to do the necessary work to have as much data as possible on how your drug works.”
BIOEurope manages to pull in the big names in Pharma for its presentations making it a worthwhile trip to hear from potential partners at first hand. With over 1,400 delegates there (up 200 on 2003) representing more than 800 companies from 34 different countries, the 10th meeting was the most successful to date. The 2004 partnering event also hosted the largest partnering programme in its history with 4,840 scheduled meetings against 3,300 last year. www.ebdgroup.com/bioeurope
International Biotech & Lab Automation 2004, London
Lab Automation Europe has become the premier European event for all those involved in automation in the lab and is dedicated to showcasing innovative robotic technology. Lab Automation was joined this year by International Biotech, a one-stop showcase embracing the latest advances in biotechnology products and practice. The free, joint exhibition of 125 exhibitors, which combined seminars, Q&A's and networking opportunities with a dedicated conference, enjoyed a steady flow of visitors. The total number of visitors over the two days was 1025, slightly lower than in 2003 but according to the exhibitors, of much higher quality than in previous years. Douglas Pretsell, Peter Colley and Kate Woods were on site to meet with the exhibitors, catch up with the media and talk to local government organisations.
www.internationalbiotech.com
Medica 2004, Düsseldorf KW
Medica always proves to be a great success for Messe Düsseldorf – and this year was no exception, with over 4000 exhibitors and 136,000 visitors attending the world’s largest medical trade fair. Peter Colley and Kate Woods spent the main duration of their visit in Halls 1-3 introducing Northbank to the hundreds of primarily European diagnostic and laboratory equipment companies exhibiting there. Kate was also able to attend the Eppendorf Young Investigator Award 2004 dinner where she met up with a few familiar faces from the German biotech community. www.medica.de
Genesis – London Biotechnology Network
Now in its fourth year, Genesis has grown up to be more than the original one-day get together for the London Biotechnology sector. Northbank handled the press room and PR for the event and with several journalists in attendance we used the opportunity to schedule interviews for two clients, IC Vec and Cresset Biomolecular Discovery. Cresset was launching its FieldScreen™ technology and had a particularly busy day speaking to the media. The communications clinic held by Northbank was enthusiastically taken up by companies needing interactive guidance on their communications needs. This year, the set up of pre-partnering sessions proved to be a highly successful means of structured networking. Having started off with an evening of drinks and relaxed networking, delegates enjoyed the conference being rounded off in the same way.
Genesis attracted 650 delegates including over 100 biotech companies. The event included several new components including pre-scheduled one-on-one partnering meetings, clinics, a Technology Showcase, and Bio-Innovation Award awarded to the most promising technology of the Showcase. Also included was a panel highlighting the ‘Ones to Watch’ where six of the most promising new companies of 2005 presented their technologies at the conference.
www.londonbiotechnology.co.uk/genesis
The ING Barings Healthcare conference
The ING Barings Healthcare conference in December, attended by 200 delegates, was a great opportunity for Emma Palmer to meet new companies, raise Northbank’s profile and catch up with companies with whom we have worked recently, such as Vernalis, Microscience and YM Biosciences. With over 40 presentations, there was a range of companies from all over the world presenting over the two days and an opportunity to hear about the progress and outlook for the whole of the life sciences sector. Investment bank conferences are a great way to introduce Northbank’s financial communications offering to companies and investors alike, and we hope to attend more in 2005. Approximately 65 institutional investors were there to listen to presenting companies.
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