While Local Biotech Entrepreneurs Look for Cash, Catching Eye of Major Partners Is the Real Key at Worldwide Industry Event
This week, thousands of scientists, financiers and executives from around the world will gather at the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s largest annual event at the San Diego Convention Center.
Their presentations on hot and contentious issues likely will make global headlines.
For San Diego’s biotech entrepreneurs the event is a gold mine of opportunities.
It means being able to showcase technologies and products to the entire industry and simultaneously see that of their rivals.
To host the event here also offers a rare opportunity to meet the top executives of pharmaceutical firms face-to-face as well as investment bankers, venture capitalists and other Wall Street types from around the country.
“If (local biotech) companies haven’t been leveraging the fact that BIO 2001 is here, they are crazy,” said Lisa Walters-Hoffert, managing director for Roth Capital Partners Inc. in San Diego.
Walters-Hoffert, a veteran investment banker, said she knows of several local biotech executives who have set up meetings with prospective partners well in advance.
“I talked to some private companies; their days are completely booked,” she said.
A lot of the courtship will take place outside the convention hall. People are planning private parties, cocktail hours, expensive dinners and harbor cruises, Walters-Hoffert said.
“It’s a long process and (people) go through a lot of different levels before it gets to the senior level,” she said.
To collaborate with drug makers is a must for most small biotech firms. They rely on major firms to provide the millions of dollars needed for R & D; as well as their distribution avenues to market products.
– Trying To Get Noticed
This year, San Diego’s biotech leaders appear to be competing vigorously for the attention of big drugmakers, according to a survey of six local biotech executives on their plans and expectations for BIO 2001.
Raising funds from financiers, by contrast, seems less critical this year.
Most biotechs say they were able to raise enough cash in 2000 to be able to keep afloat for the next couple of years.
o CancerVax
David Hale, president and CEO of CancerVax Corp. in Carlsbad, said as of the first quarter of this year, the firm has $26 million in the bank. That’s enough cash to fund projects until mid-2002, he said.
Hale, a well-known pioneer of San Diego’s biotech industry, recently joined CancerVax to help commercialize a cancer vaccine for melanoma.
As a startup firm, CancerVax is unique, because its experimental drug has been tested in late-stage clinical trials since 1998. Hale said he’s looking forward to telling CancerVax’s story at BIO 2001. He hopes to find a partner to sell the vaccine in Europe and Asia, if the FDA approves it.
o Applied Gene Technologies
Another speaker, Nanibushan Dattagupta, president and chief science officer at Applied Gene Technologies in San Diego, has similar hopes.
“My primary objective is to make contact and find compatible partners,” said Dattagupta, whose firm develops diagnostics for infectious diseases and cancer.
“We have a mature technology and don’t want to sacrifice liquidity. If we can get a licensing agreement, we can get more money to develop more products.”
Dattagupta said angel investors put up enough cash for the firm to develop a product, but wouldn’t say how much money.
o Egea Biosciences
Glen Evans, CEO Egea Biosciences, Inc., a proteomics company in San Diego, said his firm has secured $3.1 million in VC funding as well as several government grants , enough money to stay afloat until mid-2002.
Still, Evans said he has already set up meetings with prospective partners. And that is with the whole gamut of big pharma: Eli Lilly, Merck, Glaxo Bristol-Myers, you name it.
He also sees BIO 2001 as a unique opportunity.
“We usually have to go elsewhere to meet with people,” Evans said.
He hopes BIO 2001 will bring him a step closer to signing two more partnerships by the end of this year.
o GeneFormatics
John Chiplin, president and CEO of GeneFormatics Inc. in San Diego, another local proteomics firm, said he has taken additional steps to get the word out
“We will give away coil tangle toys that twist around,” Chiplin said. “This is an excellent visualization of how to take a one-dimensional string and fold into a three-dimensional protein. We hope people will take it back to their office and remember the conversation and remember the name GeneFormatics on their toy.”
o Innercool, CardioDynamics
Two local firms, Innercool Therapies Inc. and CardioDynamics International Corp., will display their technologies during the public Health Fest at the Embarcadero on June 24.
Brad Klos, director of marketing for Innercool, which is based in Sorrento Valley, wanted to raise awareness for his company’s technology by giving away samples. Innercool develops vascular catheters to induce and reverse hypothermia.
CardioDynamics, which is already on the market with a non-invasive heart-monitoring device, will offer Health Fest visitors free testing and a printout of the results to take to a doctor.
This strategy is twofold: It opens the door to prospective new customers as well as investors, said President Rhonda Rhyne.
“We hope doctors become acquainted with the technology and place the device in their offices. Prospective patients are also prospective investors.”
Most San Diego-based biotechs won’t see the fruition of their efforts until after the event, Walters-Hoffert said.
“There won’t be any deals signed during the conference,” she said. But BIO 2001 will leave the door wide open.
Other firms will make major announcements at the event in the hopes that the hundreds of reporters covering the event will write about them, she added.
