BIO’s CEO & Investor Conference Features Companies Leading Industry’s Financial Surge On Wall Street
The third annual CEO & Investor Conference’s theme is“Investing in Biotechnology: The Value, Risks and Rewards.” The two-day event, February 20-21, will be held in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Keynote speakers include Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, co-president of Intellectual Ventures and former chief technology officer of Microsoft Corporation.
More than 1,000 investors will hear first-hand from CEOs of more than 200 biotech companies what to expect in 2001 and beyond as the industry builds on the momentum from its break-out year on Wall Street. Biotech companies in 2000 raised nearly $40 billion in funds for their product development through public and private equity financings. That included $24 billion in initial public and follow-on offerings, which nearly equaled the total of $26 billion in public offerings for the entire decade of the 1990s, according to figures from BioWorld Today.
“The biotech industry has proved it can deliver effective newmedicines to patients,” said Morrie Ruffin, BIO’s vice president of business development and emerging companies. “Of the more than 100 biotech drugs and vaccines on the market, 75 percent were approved in the last six years. The future is even brighter. Advances in genetic research promise to accelerate the search for causes of diseases and the development of innovative diagnostics and medicines.
“Our CEO & Investor Conference gives established, emergingand start-up companies an opportunity to tell their drug discovery stories to a broad audience of potential investors and business partners.”
The conference will include 12 investor sessions, 10 CEO roundtables and more than 90 company presentations. In addition, there will be an international industry reception and bartop exhibition, which last year attracted more than 750 attendees and 40 exhibitors.
Investor sessions will include discussions on the role of genomics, pharmacogenomics and directed evolution in drug discovery and development, and on the progress in finding new treatments for illnesses such heart disease, cancer, inflammatory diseases and chronic infections.
Interactive CEO roundtables will highlight “issues to watch”affecting industry growth and individual company health. CEOs will share their experiences regarding industry consolidation, alternative capital sources, growth strategies and protection of intellectual property.
For more program and registration information about the BIO CEO & Investor Conference, visit the conference Web site (http://www.investinbio.com).
Cosponsors of the conference include AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, SunMicrosystems, Nasdaq and 15 investment banks: Adam, Harkness & Hill, J.P. Morgan H&Q, Credit Suisse First Boston, Fortis Bank, Lazard, Lehman Brothers, Nomura, Prudential Vector Healthcare, Robertson Stephens, SG Cowen and Co., Salomon Smith Barney, Silicon Valley Bank, Thomas Weisel Partners, UBS Warburg and US Bancorp Piper Jaffray.
BIO represents more than 950 companies, academic institutionsand state biotechnology centers in all 50 U.S. states and 30 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of healthcare, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products.
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