Partnering Opportunities Kicked Off Last Week for BIO-Europe® 2012 in November

Event in Hamburg, Germany features top CEOs on program

ZURICH & HAMBURG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Partnering opened last week for BIO-Europe® international partnering conference in Hamburg, Germany November 12–14, 2012. The 18th annual event, organized by EBD Group, the leading partnering firm for the life science industry, will be held at the CCH Congress Center Hamburg. Partnering opportunities began on Monday, October 1 for Europe’s largest partnering conference serving the global biotechnology industry. BIO-Europe attracts the world’s top dealmakers from biotech, pharma and finance along with exciting emerging companies.

Business development teams from some of the leading pharmaceutical companies will be in attendance including Abbott, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Almirall, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Baxter, Bayer HealthCare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly & Company, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, Merck Serono, MSD/Merck, Novartis Pharma, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Shire, Takeda, Upsher-Smith Laboratories, and more than 1,500 other companies looking to enter into strategic alliances.

“One-to-one partnering meetings still reign as the top strategy for pharmaceutical companies to find early and late stage collaborators,” said Carola Schropp, President of EBD Group. “BIO-Europe is our largest European event, and featured 14,765 scheduled one-to-one meetings with 3,565 licensing opportunities in 2011. Biotech companies are eager to partner, and they come to BIO-Europe ready to present their most compelling assets.”

The 2012 program features high-level executives discussing hot industry topics such as the opening plenary on Monday, November 12, “New Investment Models for Early Stage Development” with speakers Hubert Birner of TVM Life Science Management GmbH; Gilles Nobecourt of Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners; and Roger J. Pomerantz of Merck. Another highlight is the morning workshop, “Personalized oncology and next generation cancer drug development” moderated by John Freshley of Compendia Bioscience with panelists Kim Caple of Life Technologies; Peter Collins of GlaxoSmithKline; and Susan Galbraith of AstraZeneca. These leaders versed in new technology will initiate a discussion on their impact in cancer drug development and delivery of the promise of personalized medicine.

“Scientific insights into the molecular drivers of cancer growth have advanced so far that we now have a clearer idea of the complexity of these drivers, and we embed this knowledge into the development plans for our programs, in order to try to increase the success rates of getting new medicines to patients,” said Susan Galbraith, VP and Head of Oncology iMed, AstraZeneca. “I look forward to an interesting dialogue about how the future of personalized medicine and targeted cancer therapeutics presents a paradigm shift in drug development and the treatment of the disease. It requires us to change the way we run our discovery and development programs and the nature of the relationships we need to build with our partners in academia, biotech, peer pharmas and diagnostic companies.”

Tuesday’s keynote plenary, “A day in the life of experienced dealmakers: Transformational deals that shaped the industry in 2012” will be a review of the headline deals from the last year by the leaders who made them happen. The plenary will be moderated by Evonne Sepsis of ESC Advisors and David Stubbs of Inverness Advisors with panelists Lubor Gaal of Bristol-Myers Squibb; Shaun Grady of AstraZeneca; Cord Dohrmann of Evotec AG; and Barbara Yanni of Merck.

“As the industry continues to evolve so do the types of partnerships,” said Lubor Gaal, Head of Europe, Search and Evaluation, Strategic Transactions Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “This year we saw companies partner to complete acquisitions, an increase in industry-academic collaborations, and groups of companies coming together to solve industry problems. The panel will reveal a lot about the inner workings of the deal strategies that took place in 2012 and the reasons behind some of the more innovative collaborations.”

This year’s event is being held in collaboration with Norgenta, known also as “Life Science Nord,” the service agency of Hamburg and the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein, and ScanBalt™ fmba, the BioRegion association comprised of health and life science based sectors in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Partnering at BIO-Europe 2012 is powered by partneringONE®, the leading conference networking solution for the life sciences. The system generates over 40,000 one-to-one meetings at EBD Group's six life science partnering events held around the world. With partneringONE, pharma and biotech dealmakers can create a partnering profile and begin efficiently identifying and requesting meetings with potential collaborators. For more about partneringONE and how to log on to your account, go to http://www.ebdgroup.com/bioeurope/partnering/index.php.

Registration information for BIO-Europe can be found online at http://www.ebdgroup.com/bioeurope/registration/index.php.

About EBD Group

EBD Group is the leading partnering firm for the global life science industry. Since 1993, biotech, pharma and medical device companies have leveraged EBD Group’s partnering conferences, technology and services to identify business opportunities and develop strategic relationships essential to their success.

EBD Group’s conferences are run with the support of leading corporations and international trade associations and include:

• BIO-Europe® and BIO-Europe Spring®, Europe’s largest life science partnering conferences, supported by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)
• BioPharm America™, the fastest growing partnering event in North America
• Biotech Showcase™, a unique forum in San Francisco for presenting to investors and business development executives, co-produced with Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors
• BioEquity Europe, the investor conference co-organized with BioCentury Publications and BIO
• ChinaBio® Partnering Forum, the first dedicated biotech/pharma partnering conference in China, co-produced with ChinaBio® LLC
• EuroMedtech™, EBD Group’s partnering event for the innovative medical technology industry
• Partnering for Global Impact®, a new partnering conference providing an innovative forum to partner, identify and generate social and philanthropic investment and funding opportunities

EBD Group’s sophisticated web-based partnering service, partneringONE®, is also used as the partnering engine at numerous third-party events around the world, and partnering360® is the open online community of life science dealmakers that enhances partnering experiences all year long. Outside of the conference format, EBD Group’s consultants provide hands-on assistance for firms seeking to in- or out-license products and technologies. EBD Group has offices in the USA and Europe.

For more information, please visit www.ebdgroup.com.

EBD Group
Erin Righetti
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Source: EBD Group