Observations from BIO 2011

The Lacerta Bio team attended the annual BIO Convention in Washington, DC last week. BIO has become one of the key conventions for pharma/biotech business development, and is a “must attend” event for many of us in business development.

Our observations are somewhat limited, as we spent the bulk of our time in one-on-one partnering meetings. For broader coverage of the event, we recommend the official BIO press release, report by LES, and one by Popper and Co.

Generally speaking, the conference was well-attended and well-organized. The cavernous Convention Center never felt crowded, especially since the Exhibition and the Partnering areas were so far apart. Attendance “felt” reduced compared to previous meetings in Chicago and Atlanta, but this may have been due to the size of the convention center itself. But even in the partnering sessions, we noticed more companies were sending one delegate instead of two or three. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as there were plenty of decision makers at meetings. The speed of the follow up which is taking place this week is a testament to the enthusiasm of the folks we met with.

Demand for clinical and/or commercial assets appeared strong, with many companies seeking assets in areas such as CNS and pain. Niche areas such as parenteral hospital products appeared to be of interest. Our impression is that if a product is ~1 year or less from the market, then it will garner interest, irrespective of therapeutic area. In other words, companies seem to be more willing to shift their strategy and organization in order to embrace a near-term revenue opportunity, even a small one.

BIO usually attracts a strong ex-US contingent, and this year was no different. Over 70% of our meetings were with companies based outside the US. If you exclude Canada and Mexico, 64% of our meetings were with companies from Europe, Asia, and South America. We’re curious if the major European conferences attract such a large US contingency.

BIO continued to encourage the use of social media such as Twitter both prior and during the convention. The tweetup on Monday evening was well attended, and we were pleased to meet @3NT, @FierceBiotech, @IAmBiotech, @InVivoBlogChris, @ldtimmerman, and others. We believe BIO should continue to push for increased use of social media across our industry as a way to foster dialogue and communication amongst all of our industry stakeholders. Events like the 5K race on Monday were also a good way to stimulate social/informal discussion amongst attendees.

The Exhibition felt rather quiet at times (flash mob excepted). We think this was in part due to the East/West orientation of the hall. Exhibitors along the North wall away from the entrances may have suffered traffic-wise…at least it felt this way as we traversed the floor.

BIO 2012 returns to Boston next year. You can keep up with the action on Twitter by following @BostonBIO2012. See you in Boston!