By Steve Dickman, CEO, CBT Advisors
Feb. 3, 2015
One conference that is a highlight for me every year is BIO CEO in New York. This year’s edition arrives next Monday Feb. 9, concluding on Tuesday Feb. 10. One of many reasons I like it so much is that so many fund managers attend. That makes for some excellent Q&A and chatter in the hallways of the Waldorf.
If you can get there, I highly encourage it. If not, read the tweets (hashtag is #BIOCEO15) and other media coverage.
The sessions I am most looking forward to include these:
- “Emerging Trends in Deal Structures,” Mon. Feb. 9 at 9:30am. Panelists will discuss recent trends in both performance milestones and earnouts as well as swaps between pharmaceutical companies of therapeutic assets. Excellent panelists include:
- Bruce Booth, Partner, Atlas Venture
- David H. Donabedian, PhD, Vice President, Head of Ventures & Early Stage Collaborations, AbbVie
- Randall Mills, PhD, President and CEO, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
- Adelene Perkins, CEO, Infinity Pharmaceuticals
- Mark Schoenebaum, MD, Managing Director, Evercore ISI
It will be especially interesting to hear from Randall Mills, who is ushering CIRM into a hectic phase of clinical trial funding after that state agency’s first few years funding mostly early-stage research. And it is always fun to hear from Mark Schoenebaum. I half-expect him to steal the show…
- “Getting Ahead of Ebola and Other Infectious Threats—Overturning Assumptions,” Mon. Feb. 9 at 11am. The panel will discuss how companies are trying to bring new vaccines and therapies to market faster, with implications likely for a wide array of diseases. Ebola was on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday with good news, finally: the recent outbreak seems to be ebbing. However, as much as the topic will predictably fade, there will certainly be new outbreaks of Ebola and other emerging diseases and actual strategies from government and industry have been in short supply. I am glad that there is a representative of the Gates Foundation on this panel alongside some biotech luminaries to bring the much-needed non-profit perspective. Panelists:
- Ripley Ballou, MD, Head of Ebola Vaccine Research, GSK
- Chris Garabedian, President & CEO, Sarepta Therapeutics
- Peter Khoury, PhD, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Guillaume Leroy, PhD, Head of Dengue Vaccines, Sanofi Pasteur
- Clifford J. Stocks, CEO, Theraclone Sciences
- “Digital Health—Early Successes for Investors and Biotech R&D Productivity,” Mon. Feb. 9 at 3pm. This session will feature perspectives from both financial and corporate as well as from experts who have broad exposure to digital health investments. One focus will be how digital health companies are improving R&D productivity for biotechs. I had panelist Julie Papanek on my “apps as drugs” panel at Biotech Showcase (the link will take you to a video of the full panel), which took place in January. There, Julie helped me learn about what VCs are doing (and not doing) in the space. Panelists:
- Angela Bakker Lee, PhD, Partner, VP Healthcare, Global Business Services, IBM
- Donald Jones, Chairman, Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance
- Julie Papanek, Principal, Canaan Partners
- Ryan Pierce, Entrepreneur in Residence, Rock Health
- VC Funding Report for biotech. Dave Thomas from BIO Industry Analysis will be unveiling his new biotech VC Funding Report. This first-of-its-kind study looks at where venture financing has been put to work in terms of disease area and novelty of research over the last decade (five years pre and post economic crisis). Results are broken down across fourteen disease areas, including oncology, cardiovascular, neurology, psychiatry and more.
There are also some high-profile hour-long “fireside chats.” For example, on Tuesday morning, Gilead’s John Milligan will be followed by Alnylam’s John Maraganore. I wonder if anyone else remembers that Gilead started out as an antisense therapeutics company! Then on Tuesday afternoon, a chat with Peter Greenleaf from Sucampo will be followed by Ron Cohen of Acorda and then by Ian Read of Pfizer. I will try to attend many of these. Reading the CEOs’ body language and hearing their jokes will help me interpret both company commentary as well as investor sentiment in the months to come.
In between these plenary sessions, there are over a hundred company presentations. I hope to see you there.
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