Spring means meetings: BIO2004 (in San Francisco) and the NanoBusiness Alliance annual meeting (in New York), among many others (including The Business of Nano in Philadelphia). It’s the time of year when each industry takes a global view of the latest developments, articulates the pressing issues, sets new trends, and does a self-assessment.

The global focus this year at BIO was obesity (and the often-accompanying diabetes) and how genetically modi­fied foods are being developed to address this problem, which is reaching epidemic proportions in the United States.

One of the most exciting developments at BIO2004 is that New York State is finally starting to buzz. “For the last few years the ‘bio buzz’ has been on other states,” says Louis Garguilo, Jr., Director of Industry Development for Empire State Development (ESD), New York State’s economic development agency. “New York State has been quietly going along, doing and growing our business. Well, the buzz is back on New York. And we aim to increase it.”

They’ve been doing just that, starting with a classy pavilion at BIO2004. Garguilo and his agency work one-on-one with New York–based companies that are expanding, to keep them in New York. He also works with out-of-state companies looking to relocate. ESD helps these companies find facilities and skilled workers and creates incentives to attract and keep biotech companies. “This year in San Francisco, when I was asked what is happen­ing in the industry in New York State, and I started to talk about examples from Pfizer’s $1 billion and 2,000 new jobs in Manhattan to Henry Schein’s 800 new jobs on Long Island to Boston Scientific’s growing presence in

Glens Falls….the interested party usually ran out of time before I ran out of things to talk about.”

Another example of his success is Acceptys, a company that grew out of the Audubon incubator in the spring and announced they were staying in New York. The headquarters remain in Manhattan and the R&D is located at SUNY

Albany. “This is the perfect win-win-win scenario,” says Garguilo. So is Eyetech, which expanded and expects to create about 100 jobs over the next three years. Wooed by other states, they chose New York when ESD helped them find a facility and offered a capital grant. Their R&D and other contacts were already in New York City institutions, and they didn’t want to leave or lose them. This arrange­ment lets Eyetech keep the foundations they’ve worked hard to create while enabling them to grow.

Two upstate deals are noteworthy. Vaccinex just completed a successful VC round and moved from Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital to a larger facility in Rochester, where they will grow to 90 employees. And Bristol-Myers Squibb has established its Center for Biologics Development in Syracuse, adding new jobs.

Everyone expects summer to be slow. Not so for Garguilo this year. He is currently working on several deals at the same time. And he doesn’t expect this momentum to stop anytime soon. If you have a biotech firm anywhere in New York State, and you want to expand and stay in-state, or are out-of-state and looking to relocate, contact Louis ( lgarguilo@empire.state.ny.us).He’s making things happen at an unprecedented pace.

Two interesting marketing stories piqued our interest at BIO2004: The first is a follow-up to the cocktail party hosted by Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, LLP at

BIO2003 in Washington, DC (see the “Creating Buzz” column in the 3rd quarter issue, 2003). Everything about that party had been done right: It was hosted at Ortinque, a classy Caribbean restaurant; the party was manageable in size and volume; and the “culture” of the party

reflected the culture of the firm—warm and welcoming, as opposed to the mass of chaos at the hospitality suites across the street.

Well, this year BIO wisely discontinued the hospitality suites and gave everyone a night off. Individual compa­nies sponsored their own parties (by invitation only). The K&L party was at a significantly different venue— Jillian’s (a sports bar) near the Moscone Convention Center—but featured

the same warm and welcoming attitude we remembered from last year. Once again, despite having other parties to go to, we stayed a long time at

K&L’s because the company fostered networking with their attorneys as well as with other attendees. Isn’t that the point, after all, of this kind of marketing?

To learn more about their marketing, we spoke to Eileen Smith Ewing, a partner in the Boston office of K&L and the Team Leader in the Life Science Group. Ewing heads up the marketing efforts of the entire prac­tice group. K&L has a special BIO steering committee (composed of a partner from each of the company’s 10 offices and one marketing liaison to make everything seamless), which starts planning a year in advance for the next BIO. The partners in the K&L practice in BIO’s host city have the most influence over the look and feel of the event. The San Francisco practice is brand new, with a handful of attorneys who had just joined the firm. “They plunged in and hit the ground running,” says Ewing. You wouldn’t know this from the reception at Jillian’s.

Measuring marketing is difficult in events such as these. But we asked Ewing: What is K&L’s definition of ROI? There are a couple of returns on the marketing invest­ment,” Ewing responds. “One very important return is that in a practice group like life sciences any one of us in a given office has clients in far-flung geographical loca­tions around the country, and the BIO meeting is a rare chance to see them and welcome them and renew the ties. Part of what our clients expect from us (because it’s a food chain from academic institutions, to small compa‑

nies, VCs, to the big pharma companies) is introductions among these groups. We worked with clients all along the food chain so we see the big picture and use this event to get people to meet and mingle.”

Another return on investment is cross selling. Ewing says, “The life sciences group is an interdisciplinary group with lawyers practicing everything from corporate deals to product liability litigation, intellectual property, and regulatory practice (FDA-related). It’s a great oppor­tunity for us to invite our current clients and introduce them to other lawyers who do a very different type of life sciences’ practice work. In addition to cross selling, the BIO event is an opportunity to increase visibility by showing our biotech clients that we can introduce them to other clients and expand their own business opportunities….And it’s nice to have a K&L family reunion once a year.” For these reasons, “It’s cru­cial that the mood of the event should be accessible and friendly.”

The least reliable part of the ROI is to have brand new client opportunities walk into the reception. It’s “less a case of that than reinforcing existing relationships,” says Ewing.

The San Francisco and Washington venues were very different. How did the prices vary? “The price was the same and they stuck to an almost identical budget for both venues—we’re a fiscally conservative firm and we don’t throw money at marketing,” says Ewing.

The second marketing story we took away from BIO is about a small company called Monal Labs and their booth. Jeff Wright, who works at Monal, designed the booth’s look, feel, and theme. “I have to decide how to be unique.” Wright’s biggest challenge, like that of anyone who has a booth at a trade show as large as BIO, is to

find a way to “get people to make a mental assent that Monal is a full-service construction firm, rather than just having them look and smile as they grab my free give-away (much the way I do when I walk the shows).”

His solution? Put a massage chair in the booth. It worked! The chair was programmed for a two-minute massage. A headphone provided accompanying audio, which began, “Monal Labs, for all your biotech and spe­cialty construction needs, invites you to relax for the next two minutes.” Two minutes of sales pitch? No; instead, Wright programmed soft, relaxing music to listen to— music he composed for the occasion. To complete the

experience, the chair faced a plasma-screen slide show of

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different aspects of high-tech facilities Monal has com­pleted. The slide show lasted just under two minutes. The entire experience was a well-orchestrated environment. “It changed roles for us. Normally when walking through a trade show, you try not to make contact with the guy working the booth because he will try to ‘sell’ you some-thing.” In this case, people wanted to be at the Monal booth because “they ‘heard’ about ‘the chair.’ ” Several times there was a line at the booth, waiting for a free mas­sage, “or as I like to think of it, a free commercial for Monal,” says Wright.

ROI? “Time will tell if we got any good leads. But the idea of a trade show is to get as many people edu­cated to the services or product you offer. This was a smashing success.”

Disturbing trends in science

articulated at two nano meetings

Interesting trends, or expressions of distress, surfaced during the NanoBusiness Alliance’s annual meeting and The Business of Nano meeting.The latter encompassed “more than 500 key corporate and academic nanotech associates representing funding, research, development, manufacturing and investment communities. . .assembledat the state’s second major nano gathering sponsored bythe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” according to Laura Felty, Deputy Press Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. (The meeting is an example that New York State could benefit from following.)

The first issue is women’s rights. At the NanoBusiness Alliance meeting, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon spoke about the “systemic discrimination” against women in science and advocated that Title IX be applied to womenin academia. Senator’s Wyden’s view was refreshing andexciting. All one had to do was look around the room tosee the gender disparity. Senator Wyden encouraged theaudience to contact him to continue the discussion on this issue but unfortunately apparently didn’t tell his press secretary: I made three unsuccessful attempts to reach him.

The second issue is education. At The Business of Nano meeting, two facets of this issue were brought up that reflect important issues in science, regardless of geo­graphical location or type of scientific pursuit. The first isbrain drain. In Pennsylvania (and the East Coast in gener­al, we’ve been told), students receive science degrees andleave the state for greener pastures (usually in the south),

creating a gaping hole in the state for the qualified scien­tists it needs. So, on the one hand, Pennsylvania, a leader in nano and bio technology, attracts companies and research to the state. On the other hand, it’s losing the necessary resources—homegrown scientists—to sustain those efforts. Pennsylvania, again in the forefront of

addressing and remedying the situation, has established astrategic program to counteract brain drain. It’s called theKeystone Innovation Zone Program—an “economic stim­ulus package specifically designed to retain and attract the young and talented graduates coming out of universities

that conduct research,” says Felty.

And another kind of brain drain was brought up by an educator in the audience. There are few qualified scienceteachers at the grade-school level to bring children along in science and instill a love of science in them. Without this foundation, it’s difficult for kids to further their stud­ies in pursuit of a career. No wonder the importation of scientists from abroad is a trend. These issues have too long remained dormant and unarticulated on a large scale. Pennsylvania is ahead of the pack in addressing them.

The revitalization of….Brooklyn? Yup.

A unique entity grows in Brooklyn—a new incubator located on the SUNY Downstate campus. The ribbon-cut­ting ceremony took place on June 24 when the AdvancedBiotechnology Incubator opened its first phase in a multi-phase project: an 11,000-square-foot building. The biotech incubator, part of a larger Advanced BiotechnologyPark, includes laboratories and office spaces. Downstate’s faculty researchers, the medical/scientific library, and other specialized facilities are steps away, making it the perfect location for a biomedical incubator.

An anchor tenant, ImClone Systems, Inc., has constructed a 13,000-square-foot facility adjacent to the incubator for a new division that is developing innovative new treatments for cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

The incubator is part of Downstate’s Brooklyn Biotechnology Consortium, established in cooperation with local institutions, elected officials, and communityleaders. As biotech businesses grow, they will be able to secure manufacturing space in the Borough in the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

New York, indeed, is

a force to watch as

we keep growing.