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 May 2005.

MipTec 2005, Basel, 9 - 12 May 2005

Now in its eighth year, MipTec has established itself as a leading conference on enabling drug discovery technologies. Hosted in the beautiful city of Basel, Peter Colley and Sarah Jeffery took the opportunity to catch up with existing clients, meet new ones and raise the profile of Northbank.The quality of the programme was good with leading speakers from both academia and industry. Poster presentations running for the duration of the conference were well attended and exhibitors had the opportunity to present their latest products and services. However, attendance was significantly down over last year. Overall 740 visitors attended the conference over four days, 90 as exhibitors. This compared with ~1000 in previous years was disappointing to organisers and exhibitors alike. It’s difficult to pinpoint why this was but with SBS in Geneva in just a few month’s time this could be a major contributory factor. www.miptec.com

Sozo, Montreux, 12 May 2005

Emma Palmer attended the first SOZO biotech networking event in the beautiful location of Montreux. Over 200 delegates were able to choose from 70 short presentations (40 company presentations and 30 indivdual speakers) as well as view the 15 or so exhibiting companies. Designed to promote links between the European and Japanese life sciences communities, the conference proved to be another very useful networking opportunity.
www.one-events.com/sozo/index.html

BIA BioBusiness Exchange, London, 19 May 2005

The UK BioIndustry Association, BIA, held an inaugural event BioBusiness Exchange in May 2005, which saw over 110 delegates from corporate bioscience companies attend. As a longstanding BIA member, Northbank Communications was delighted to sponsor a table at the event and hosted two workshop discussion sessions on aspects of financial communications. The BioBusiness Exchange was designed to provide a forum for service providers to share best practice. Feedback from delegates on the event was: a good balance of presentations, round tables, case studies; and lots of opportunity to meet people and chat through common issues. Feedback for the Northbank sessions was positive and both sessions led to lively discussions around the table for 12. Overall the event exceeded expectations – it was an excellent opportunity to get a feel for the current issues across biotech and the personal agenda concept worked well. The post networking drinks was received well by delegates and was an excellent way to close the event. The BIA will be looking to repeat this event next year. www.bioindustry.org/cgi-bin/event_view

BioEquity, Zurich, 23-24 May 2005.

The Northbank team worked with BioCentury, the organisers of BioEquity, to encourage good attendance by European biotech investors. In the event, BioEquity again set record attendance, up nearly 10% to almost 600 attendees. This included more than 300 members of the international financial community and 200 life science executives. Sue Charles, Katja Stout and Emma Palmer were on hand from the Northbank team, to support our presenting clients, keep up to date with sector sentiment, and network.

In total there were 66 Company presentations, across the two days, including Europe's next generation of bellwether companies and participants from 22 nations. An additional 31 biotech companies participated in BioEquity's Private Company Workshops, a new feature for BioEquity that discussed asset building strategies for private companies. Presenting companies from Northbank included Ablynx, Basilea Pharmaceutica, Esbatech, LifeCycle Pharma, Pieris Proteolab, PowderMed, Santaris Pharma, Symphogen and Trigen.

The BioEquity conference programme featured more than 75 speakers that included thought leaders from the key venture capital, investment banking, asset management and biotechnology companies. As in year's past, the programme was kicked off with BioCentury’s Annual Report on European Fundraising Needs, which discussed what the data say about European biotech’s access to global capital, plus the projected capital needs of Europe’s clinical stage companies through 2007. To access the report free of charge at BioCentury's website please click here.

And of course, there was an excellent networking dinner at Zunft Saffran where chocolate and drinks flowed freely. BioEquity is undoubtedly one of Europe's top investment conferences for the biotech sector. The 2006 event is planned for Frankfurt, 22 – 23 May 2006 www.biocentury.com/html/conferences/bee/

Biotech and Finance Forum, Munich, 6 June 2005

For the second year running, Northbank was appointed as the PR partner for the Biotech and Finance Forum which took place in Munich on the 6th of June 2005. Dr Douglas Pretsell and Sue Charles attended this year’s 6th Anniversary event which saw approximately 200 delegates gathered to see presentations from European Biotech entrepreneurs. The pre-partnering system ensured that most people were able to maximise partnering and network with senior investment and corporate contacts from the European Biotech and Pharma industry. The day before the conference, Douglas represented Northbank as one of the coaches at the Venture Academy. This unique coaching event provides an excellent forum for presenting executives to hone their skills and sharpen their presentations for maximum impact.This well attended and organised event made the Biotech and Finance Forum worthwhile for sponsors and delegates alike. The next Biotech and Finance Forum will take place on 1 December 2005 in Barcelona.
www.e-unlimited.com/bff

techMARK mediscience awards dinner London, 9 June 2005

With Emma Palmer on the awards panel and several Northbank clients nominated for prizes, the 2005 techMARK mediscience dinner was a big event for all attendees. As ever, the dinner was a relaxed and well attended affair, which provided Emma Palmer, Sue Charles, Katja Stout and Ashley Lilly with plenty of opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances and make new contacts. The icing on the cake was the awards to two of Northbank's clients, CeNeS Pharmaceuticals won Breakthrough of the Year (click here to see the press release) and York Pharma won Best Performing AIM Mediscience Share (click here to see the press release). Well done! www.mediscience-event.co.uk/archive_2005.php

BIO 2005 Philadelphia, 19 - 22 June 2005

With a record-breaking crowd of 18,700 biotechnology executives, investors, journalists, policy makers and scientists from over 60 countries attending, it was BIO’s best convention ever. Over 2,000 companies were represented including Northbank Communications and several of its clients; Ablynx, Atugen, Biacore, BioInvent International, Borean Pharma, Cobra Biomanufacturing, IntegraGen, MNLpharma, Oxford BioMedica, Plethora Solutions, PowderMed, Santaris Pharma and Symphogen.

As the premier biotechnology conference, more than 900 speakers shared their expertise in 180 programme sessions including a panel organised by Northbank for two of its clients, Oxford BioMedica and Atugen, entitled “Novel Delivery Systems for Genes and RNAi".

The conference offered the perfect opportunity for business development opportunities and this year, in the Business Forum, over 240 companies delivered business presentations and over 6,000 pre-arranged partnering meetings were held.

The exhibit hall featured a record 1,525 displays from all over the world and Northbank’s Katja Stout and Ashley Lilly did their best to cover the 315,000 square feet of space within the three-day conference. With the flurry of activities and meetings each day, Katja and Ashley barely had time to attend the many elaborate evening functions held around historic Philadelphia sites including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, now famous from the movie “Rocky”. The conference remains the ideal opportunity to stay abreast of industry trends, engage in all levels of business development and foster industry relationships, new and old. www.bio.org/events/2005

Growth Company Investor Show, 21 June 2005

Running for the first time, the Growth Company Investor Show promised predominantly private investors a showcase of over 50 small cap companies from an array of sectors. Northbank provided PR and media support for the event. From the Healthcare/Biotech sector Alliance Pharma, Plethora Solutions, ReGen Therapeutics and LiDCO made appearances. Northbank client Plethora Solutions reported making a number of valuable contacts and was suitably impressed with the high volume of investor attendance. All in all, 1000 investors attended with 60% of those being private investors and 40% being professional investors in the guise of fund managers, private brokers and key institutions. 50 quoted companies exhibited. Due, perhaps, to the reputation of the GCI publication, the show was a considerable success and will be one to watch out for in the future. www.growthbusiness.co.uk

European Society for Animal Cell Technology (ESACT), Harrogate, 5 - 8 June 2005

The UK was home to this year’s ESACT conference. The 19th meeting of the European Society for Animal Cell Technology covered advances in Animal Cell Technology with a meeting theme of 'Cell Technology for Cell products'. It was a highly successful gathering with a total attendance of over 800 people and 75 exhibitors.

Northbank clients and other exhibitors told us that the quality of the event was high, with several good leads being generated particularly in the areas of bioprocessing, cell culture and cell-based screening. As usual at such conferences, the exhibition area was fairly quiet during the academic sessions but extremely lively during the “breaks”, making attendance very worthwhile for Northbank representative, Peter Colley.

The next (20th) meeting will be on 17-20 June 2007 in Dresden, Germany. www.esact2005.org

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