Keynote Speakers Named for New BIO Investor Forum in San Francisco

WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 4, 2004) -- The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today announced that healthcare industry leaders Margaret Tempero M.D. and Gregory Lucier, CEO of Invitrogen Corp., will deliver keynote addresses at the first annual BIO Emerging Company Investor Forum (BECIF) Oct. 13 -15 in San Francisco.

Highlighting key challenges facing cancer drug development at the clinical and regulatory levels, Tempero, chief of medical oncology and deputy director of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Cancer Center, will address the topic, “Looking to the Future: Status of Oncology in America,” at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13.

Tempero, a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), is an expert in gastrointestinal oncology and has led efforts to develop national guidelines for the management of pancreatic cancer.

Lucier will present his keynote Thursday, Oct. 14 at 12:30 p.m. He will discuss a range of management and life sciences investment issues.

Lucier has led Carlsbad, Calif.-based Invitrogen (NASDAQ:IVGN), a $1 billion life sciences company since 2003. Before joining Invitrogen, he served as president and chief executive officer of GE’s Medical Transformation Technologies, which he grew from a $700 million business into a $2 billion enterprise.

“We look forward to the insightful remarks we expect to hear from Dr. Tempero, an investigator and immediate past president of ASCO, and Mr. Lucier, the CEO of Invitrogen, the largest company that is developing tools and services our industry needs to speed the drug discovery and development process,” said Morrie Ruffin, BIO’s vice president of business development and emerging companies.

BIO’s Emerging Company Investor Forum, hosted by Lazard and Banc of America Securities, and co-hosted by CIBC World Markets, Pacific Growth Equities and Citigroup, addresses an unmet need identified by the investment community and industry executives for a conference exclusively focused on emerging public and late-stage private companies in the biotechnology industry. The forum will be held at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

BECIF will offer a diverse program of investor and industry education, including business roundtables, disease and technology workshops, company presentations and one-on-one investor and partnering meetings.

For more information the program including business roundtables as well as therapeutic and technology focused workshops, visit http://www.bio.org. Registration is complimentary for credentialed news media and investors. To register, please click here.

BIO represents more than 1,000 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations in all 50 U.S. states and 33 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of health-care, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products.