Life Science Communicants

Moo! Cows, bull semen and biotechnology

2006-04-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

One of several exceptional spokespeople from New Zealand that we worked with at BIO2006 is Dr Suzanne Bertrand, Innovation Manager (a great title) for Livestock Improvement (a great name). She was the outstanding speaker at the New Zealand Ag and Food Seminar (with a charming Quebecois accent and killer use of visuals in her slides), so I was on the lookout for interview opportunties for her.

As it turned out, Chuck Zimmerman (one of our first blog visitors) was having a hard time finding BIO2006 material for World Dairy Diary, an online blog-style trade publication.

WDD is a lively multimedia pub enriched with photos and audio, featuring short daily articles with such arresting headlines as:
"Camel Milk Production Faces Humps" and
"Great Lakes Manure Expo Encourages You to 'Keep it in the Root Zone'".

Chuck has published an audio interview of Suzanne that is informative, educational, entertaining and even sexy--listen carefully for the line about the Holy Grail of dairy cattle improvement!

emm

emm

Exit Strategies

2006-04-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Fierce Biotech had an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article this morning on the failure of recent biotech IPOs...

Biotech IPOs underperforming on Wall Street
New IPOs from drug developers have been coming at a steady pace, but investors are gaining little joy from them, says The Wall Street Journal. In a close look at the IPOs filed this year, the WSJ says that drug developers are arriving on the public markets without a product, without revenue and without a lot of cash in the bank. As a result, the biotech IPOs are delivering only small gains in first-day trading and drug developers are routinely cutting their asking price. Also, instead of paying a premium for a piece of a biotech company, the investors who buy into these IPOs are often able to pay significantly less for a share than early investors.

Hence, the increasing number of company buy-outs? At least one VC friend says so, with M&A becoming their favored acquistion strategy once a certain level of human proof of concept has been achieved. Sounds like medical device start ups. Certainly big pharma and big biotech are looking for products and willing to pay big bucks for them.

A less sanguine view of BIO2006 I

2006-04-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Economist's reporter put a rather more skeptical spin on the BIO2006 conference in this article:

"EVERY industry has its big conferences, but biotechnology must host one of the largest. Some 18,000 scientists, businessmen, financiers and hangers-on descended upon Chicago recently for the annual Bio conference. The gathering boasted plenty of posh parties, high-flying political visitors and boozy nights out at blues bars. To judge by this expense-account fiesta, biotech certainly seems to enjoy a lot of easy money just now. "

As an attendee of several of those posh parties, I'd suggest that the amount spent on parties and promotions mostly reflects the investment by governments, NGOs (like BIO) and big pharma in biotech outreach; governments to attract a hot industry to their jurisdictions, and big pharma (and big agribusiness), bogged down by big company administration, marketing and regulatory affairs to find partners with less fettered R&D to feed their pipelines. Apart from the big profitable players, the biotech parties were mostly modest hotel conference room affairs.

Read the article and then come back for more commentary on the economics of biotech.

emm

Just under 19,500 attended BIO2006

2006-04-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

The official BIO release has all the stats.

The view from the TV balcony, where we were escorting people for BioTechNation interviews (we'll link to podcasts as they publish), was pretty awesome. 1,700 companies from 46 states and 39 nations were on the exhibit floor, so it was not an illusion that it seemed bigger than last year, not even counting the cornfield.

The overarching conclusion is that biotechnology is maturing and branching out and that "The convergence of health, food and agriculture, and industrial and environmental biotechnology..." is the big trend this year.

We'll post links to some of the media clips from interviews at BIO and seek out more connections on agbiotech, biofuels and bioindustrial.

emm

Post-Chicago leftovers

2006-04-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Joan and I have both moved on to visit family so blogging has been and will be light until next week.

The field Museum Gala event Tuesday night did redeem Chicago. I'm used to the Museum being as empty and quiet as a cathedral, so having it stuffed with thousands of guests under lavish Morrocan (garish pink and orange silk divans, pierced copper lanterns) and African (shields, wooden bowls, bark cloth prints) decor was rather disorienting. Belly dancers, African dancers and drumming had everyone's attention; the food was excellent and gorgeously presented and the bars were fine. Not just the enormous Main Hall was open, but the galleries above as well (great place from which to see the dancers).

From speaking with others, I was not the only guest to get teary-eyed going up those famous stairs (a 1950s Julius Caesar was filmed on them with a young Marlon Brando as Marc Antony and Charlton Heston as Big Julie)--the first and deepest impression of a Temple of Science for many of us who were thus inspired to careers in science.

The breadth and depth of the whole BIO2006 conference was amazing. Next year we'll live-blog again and better.

Oh, and Dick Deluxe reports that Mississippi Heat, the band we saw at the Belgian party at Buddy Guy's is probably the best art blues band in Chicago today, so that's an endorsement. Buy a CD: http://www.mississippiheat.net/

emm

Bye-bye Chicago

2006-04-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over for the on-site stuff... not a moment too soon. This event is overwhelming and certainly kept us hopping this year. Margery said that she recorded over 90,000 steps on a pedometer one day, and I think I've walked just as much. It was very productive too, at least on behalf of our New Zealand contingent.

Now it's time to follow up on leads and collect any clips, etc.

Very diverse indeed

2006-04-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

I heard several pleased comments, including from journalists, that BIO was so diverse this year. Ag Bio, industrial, energy... all have finally joined healthcare on center stage. And I think will continue to grow in prominence.

In fact, a comment by a P&G spokesperson at another recent conference positioned industrial biotech (including new materials and bioenergy) to overtake healthcare in future, not to distant years.

Agbiotech returns!

2006-04-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

At least BIO, the emerging countries, New Zealand, Iowa and the rest of the Midwest hope so.

I worked for the other genetically engineered tomato company (DNAP) in the mid-'90s, so I had a front-row seat for Monsanto's rBGH PR disaster that fueled much of the anti-GMO movement.

This year, BIO planted a tiny field of GM corn on the exhibit floor with a few other plants on display (the cotton was easy; extra points if you recognized the soybean plant and only the cognoscenti will know that those leggy yellow mustardy plants are rapeseed--the source of canola oil). Around the field, videos of farmers from around the world explain the benefits of biotech crops. The sponsor: Monsanto. I think they learned something about PR, although this venue is preaching to the choir, it does make a nice sight-bite for TV interviews.

emm

Monday evening party report

2006-04-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

Margery wangled us invites to the Scotland affair up top of Soldiers Field; nice single-malts and a piper on the terrace overlooking the Lake.

But as usual the Belgian delegation offered the best party: Belgian beer and pomme frites (avec creme fraiche) at Buddy Guy's Legends on Wabash. The venue still has the old blues funk about it, although a smoke-free blues club is sorta like a cathedral without incense. The band was Mississippi Heat ("The hottest band in Chicago") and lived up to the hype--great harmonica player in Blues Bros wide white tie and porkpie and a truly fine powerful female singer--excellent sidemen on guitar/guitar/bass/drums. Over amped, but that's what earplugs are for, to block the IM distortion.

emm

The Partnering Dance

2006-04-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

I ran into an old friend and former client who I only seem to see at BIO and similar events -- somehow, we kept stumbling into each other at the same parties on Sunday and Monday... and then again on the bus this morning.

He's here for the partnering forum, and told me about the online scheduling that registrants can do for their meetings. While most of the people requesting meetings had indeed read his company's profile, others seemed like spam because they were so far off the mark.

BIO itself also requested a meeting using this automatic software, just to try to sell him a membership.

Green Kitchen

2006-04-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

One of the neater PR-savvy displays this year is the "Green Kitchen". They've set up a small display kitchen within a half grain bin next to the little cornfield, where all the counter tops and cabinetry are new biomaterials. This includes hemp countertops that resemble Corian in appearance and hardness (materials developed by Avanti Polymers, www.avantipolymers.com of Manitoba, Canada) and wheat straw cupboards from Dow BioProducts (www.dow-bioproducts.com) Apparently some of the latter are available at Home Depot. There is also a corn-derived carpet as well as plastic cups and cutlery from corn.

They also had some beautiful fabric developed by DuPont from corn -- it was soft, flowed nicely and is machine washable. I'll take a jacket from that please!

In fact, I suggested that next year they have a give-away for a nice women's jacket made from the stuff.

Manic Monday

2006-04-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

Lots to report, little time before the evening parties.

Breakfast with New Zealand and Iowa to discuss further progress and future plans in their 3-year offical biotechnology collaboration. Most people have no idea how much Iowa and NZ have in common, but I was struck when I first met them how much Kiwis are like Midwesterners. Farm-based economies with high-tech and well-educated people out of ag schools. Salt of the earth, every one of them.

Did get to meet Stephen from Patent Baristas and had a lively conversation about blogs, RSS, patent law and ag-biotech. What a cool use of electronic media to find and meet a stranger at a ~20,000 person event!

Then helped Joan herd cats all afternoon filling slots for NPR's Biotech Nation radio program. Lots of NZ spokesfolks on biofuels and digital anatomy models--how about a 3D digital model of you, right down to the cellular and molecular level? Through the magic of CAD/CAM, I could realize a lifetime fantasy of having a model of my own skeleton! I think the fully custom athletic shoes and sports car seats will sell better, though.

Also Una Ryan from AVANT Immunotherapeutics (another client) on the future of vaccines worldwide.

And now off to Soldiers' Field (go Bears!) for Scotland's Scotch tasting, then to the Nektar Therapeutics (another client) reception; they are celebrating the approval in the US and EU of the world's first inhaled insulin device. If we can still walk, Belgium is hosting beer and pommes frites at Buddy Guy's Legends, so we may get our blues after all.

emm

The Economic Development Circus #1

2006-04-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

One of the big reasons for exhibitors to be at BIO is economic development. Not only do you have a large number of countries here, but also just about every US state. I sat on the bus this morning with a nice woman from Nebraska. She herself was involved in robotic surgery research but had also been the organizer of their booth. They sound like an average developing area, although with the advantages of Novaritis and another big pharma having offices locally. Otherwise it was a number of smaller companies, the local university, and the sort of life sciences firms that have only recently become a part of BIO (i.e. nutraceuticals). Will have to stop by and see what the showing really is...

2006-04-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

The Navy Pier event did not reflect well on my home
town.

You know you're in trouble when you ask the bartender
for a gin & tonic and she asks, "how
do you make that?"

They would have been much better off serving Chicago
specialties like Italian Beef and hot dogs with
fluorescent green pickalilli, but instead offered the
usual trite selection of sushi, dim sum, and pasta,
plus "Greek" (mediocre lamb souvlaki);
however, the pulled pork and sweet potatoes
were really good.

Otherwise, the noise and entertainment were no worse
than usual at these events, the gin was Bombay Sapphire
and we did get to shout at a lot of acquaintances.

So I'd rate it a C- event,
except the coat check nearly lost Joan's jacket,
bringing it down to a D.

We'll see if the Field Museum Gala redeems my city.

Got the blues?

2006-04-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

My guitarist friend Dick Deluxe http://www.dickdeluxe.com/
came through with Chicago blues suggestions for visitors:

"in general the days of the South Side blues club is over-the active ones are all in the North side-black folks are defintively not blues fans and increasingly fewer of the musicians are black and very few young ones.

The best experience is probably to go to Halsted street and go to Kingston Mines and/or B.L.U.E.S. across the street. Near downtown, Buddy Guy's club is a good one, and near Wrigley frield the Cubby Bear has blues but not my personal fav. Other clubs you might want to check out are the Blue Chicago clubs on Clark-there are a couple of them.

If anyone wants to get picquaresque the West Side has Rosa's out on Armitage has great atmosphere and has some of the remaining black artists. The "A" team is long dead (Muddy, Wolf, Little Walter, etc.), the B team is dying fast (Buddy Guy is about it Eddy Clearwater is I think still working) and the C team is even thinning but still a few around (Jimmy Lane, Melvin Taylor) and of course there are a ton of white guys --some better than others.

The Checkerboard is still going in South Chicago and I'd recommend it if I thought the potential danger was worth seeing some past or future legend, but these days I'd stick to Halsted or Clark. If out in the burbs Smokedaddy's aint bad, although you might as well be in Walnut Creek.

Overall I think Kingston Mines is about the best-I never really had a bad time there and you can always cross the street."

emm

High-tech animal husbandry

2006-04-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

BIO scheduled the Food & Ag sessions more prominently and consequently more people attended. The New Zealand session (disclosure--they are a client) had some fascinating stuff on the high-tech edge of animal husbandry. NZ has as many cows as people (4 million), and more sheep.

Livestock Improvement has nearly a century of co-op data (they bought their first IBM computer in 1965) on cows. With genomics they can now select and breed for fertility and milk characteristics. Most dairies use a single breed (Holstein in N America, Brown Swiss in Switzerland, Jerseys in the UK, etc.), but LI has cross-breeds (e.g. Jersy x Freesians) for genetic strength and better results.

AgResearch has many projects; here's just two:
IgA hyperimmune cow's milk to give babies antibody advantages against bacterial viral and fungal disease.
And a pill to make cows belch less methane for greenhouse gas amelioration.
All done with free-pasture husbandry.

very cool

emm

One reason McCormick Place is so disorienting

2006-04-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

The escalators and stairs only go up one floor at time. Then you trek across a quarter mile of foot-pounding marble to find the next escalator. A bit like a 3D chessboard where the various levles are in different rooms.

emm

Heard on the way to the Country Seminars

2006-04-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

In an Australian accent: "Are you going to tell the Minister about the dung beetle project?"

Really captures the flavor of BIO meetings!

emm

The McCormick Maze

2006-04-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is perhaps the largest and most confusing Convention Center I've ever been in. We were directed all over the place, with at least 3 false starts, before finding the room for this afternoon's International Seminars. Definitely need to wear your most comfortable shoes, as you are going to walk for miles. I just heard rumors of foot massages being available. Might be worth checking out tomorrow, when things REALLY get going.

Sunday is International Day, with quite a number of 1 hour presentations from every country imaginable. This year they also have hall tables where the various Economic Development teams are ensconced. There is also an international agricultural series of talks later this afternoon. They did these last year, but they were hidden away on Saturday with no promotion. That isn't the case at this BIO -- ag is definitely a major theme.

Why life science communications matter

2006-04-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

Coinciding with BIO2006 is a Carnival of Biotechnology on April 10th, hosted by the Patent Baristas. When I went to submit a post to the Carnival, I found that the available categories do not include communications.

Now all of us think our professions are the center of the universe, and I think attorneys are the salt of the earth (shameless brown-nose), and finance and business development are essential to a healthy industry, but for the biotech blog community to not acknowledge the existence of communications is ironically self-effacing.

Therefore, not only am I submitting this post with its potential circular references, but I'm going to link to an article by my business partner (shameless plug) that recently appeared on Nature's Bioentrepreneur site "Why Media Relations Matter" (registration required), that makes the case for communications, particularly media relations, at the dawn of the New Media era.

"Although a strategic corporate communications program contains many elements, building a solid ongoing relationship and fruitful interactions with the media is an important part of that effort. The media are the world's information gatekeepers. It is true that the Internet has made everyone a publisher, capable of direct dissemination of their own press releases to a wide range of target audiences. However, the third party credibility offered by coverage in independent newspapers, magazines, wire services, broadcast and formal internet publications, and perhaps soon, weblogs, are prime examples of why the media remain a powerful force in the biotech industry."

Now that you're here, come back for live-blogging and photo blogging from BIO2006 in Chicago starting tomorrow and in between for Chicago information.

emm

It does seem a bit dadaesque...

2006-04-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek has an overview of the upcoming event. The French and others are coming to tend the cornfield in the middle of the convention center hall... A good quick summary of some of the issues facing the industry at present in this.

Reception Venues I: Sunday Evening at Navy Pier

2006-04-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

Reception Venues I: Sunday Evening at Navy Pier

BIO always has entertaining receptions in locales that pick up the theme of the host city.

BIO has information on the sponsors and a bit on the venues at:
http://www.bio.org/events/2006/receptions/

So I'm going to focus on personal and lesser-known aspects.

The Welcome Reception Sunday night is at the Navy Pier Ballroom.
Navy Pier http://www.navypier.com/ was designed by the great Daniel Burnham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham in 1909 as part of his project to "make Chicago a city to rival Paris". His master plan proposed five piers into Lake Michigan, but only one was built, as a freight and passenger dock and entertainment promenade.

It was a hot spot in the 1920's, like Coney Island; my grandmother was a flapper who had stories about going to Navy Pier for fun. During WWII the Navy moved in for pilot training. After the war, the University of Illinois had a campus there until 1965. It was also the biggest trade show venue in Chicago, but lost out to the post-fire McCormick Place in the '70s. As part of the US bicentennial celebration, Chicago renovated Navy Pier as a recreational destination; it's been phenomenally successful.

In addition to the Ballroom, there is a Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Funhouse and the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. There are docks for sightseeing boats--if you have time to book a cruise Sunday afternoon it's a great way to see the City from the Lake.
http://www.navypier.com/SubLink.cfm?Main_ID=15&Sub_ID=126

emm

2006-04-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

Can anyone help sponsor this poor blogger?

http://agwired.com/2006/04/05/bowled-over-by-bio/

Actually, we may have been the ones guilty of the "I see you are going..." I believe he was on the registered media list that our colleagues from New Zealand received as sponsors.

2006-04-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

So, here we are... down to the wire in preparing for the monster-sized event. If you haven't been to BIO's international meeting before, this is one big conference attended by tens of thousands. BIO itself is citing some 1600 exhibiting companies, plus every economic development group with its eye on life science businesses will be represented. Connecting with people gets to be fun, and Chicago looks to be more difficult than Philly or San Francisco were. The Convention Center is miles from most of the hotels.

Like most people, we have multiple reasons for going. Officially we are working with the New Zealand contingent, which includes both companies, research institutions, and governmental representatives. If you can make it, they are co-sponsoring a wine tasting with Australia that is open to all in the exhibition hall on Tuesday afternoon. Our other reasons? Oh the usual... networking, business development and good times.

2006-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Found out that the Hyatt Networks Restaurant does not take breakfast or lunch reservations and they've already been swamped with calls from people hoping to reserve tables for meetings during BIO. So if you are setting up meetings or interviews and don't have a hotel suite, finding a place in the McCormick Place area could be tough. If anyone out there knows McCormick Place and can suggest something, I've left comments open.

2006-04-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

Life Science Communicants

As the native Chicagoan in this group, I feel an obligation to comment on the Chicago venues. However, I left Chicago for the San Francisco Bay Area more than 20 years ago, so I'm not the most up-to-date source on the ground. Nevertheless:

McCormick Place (after what famous Chicagoan was it named?) was notorious in my day for its inconvenient location (and for burning down in 1967). I understand things have improved, and based on previous BIO meetings, there should be plenty of shuttle buses to elsewhere, including the receptions (of which more in a future post).

The exhibit hall is huge, so wear comfortable shoes.
Here's a link to the floorplan for BIO
http://www.bio.org/events/2006/exhibitors/FloorPlan2006.pdf

And since I couldn't find one on the BIO site, here's a link to the McCormick place site map:
http://www.mccormickplace.com/SubLink.cfm?Main_ID=4&Sub_ID=1

It looks like most of the BIO2006 events are in the South building, with the Exhibit floor on Level 3 and meeting rooms on 1, 4 & 5. The Plenary sessions are in the North Building.

The Hyatt Regency is nestled in the corner of the South and North buildings, and for those of us scheduling interviews or meetings, looks like one place to try. There's the Networks Restaurant and Lounge right at the connector to McCormick place. Here's a link to the Hyatt site--drill down through "Meetings & Events" (lower right) and you can get to a .pdf map
http://mccormickplace.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp

It also looks like there's a lot of restaurants (including a McDonald's) in McCormick Place itself.

And note this; too bad they don't offer foot massages!

Massage Break lounge – offering on-site massage and upper bodywork, sessions run between 10 and 30 minutes. Located on level 2.5 of the Grand Concourse.

Tomorrow I'll tackle Navy Pier, The Field Museum and the Palmer House.

emm

2006-04-03T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to the Wisconsin BIO2006 site. http://uc.wisc.edu/bio2006/
You can see their booth design. I, for one, plan to stop by and use their blog as an entree comment.

It turns out there are other blogs that mention BIO2006, but not many:

Patent Baristas--look for Stephen R Albainy-Jenei with Frost-Brown at BIO2006.
http://www.patentbaristas.com/archives/cat_blawg_reviews.php
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/archives/2006/01/china_and_midwe.html
An ancient post on Minnesota Nanotechnology

emm

2006-04-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

The only other blog I could find directed at BIO2006 was from Wisconsin. If we go ahead, we could link to them. I'm also trying to edit in a link to BIO.org. If any Vivantes see this, please go ahead and post.

emm