Did you hear that? It’s the sound of more than 15,000 people taking a collective breath. That’s because we are now at the halfway point of the 2016 BIO International Convention, the world’s largest biotechnology gathering with over 900 speakers, 180 company presentations, 19 education tracks, 6 super sessions, and 35,000 partnering meetings. Now that’s a lot of stuff!

While many at BIO are focused on partnering – establishing new and exciting relationships with other biotech and pharmaceutical companies to push their products forward – others come to BIO to learn about the latest in research, innovation, and healthcare in the biotechnology space.

With so much going on at once, it’s hard to choose where to spend your time. If you follow BIO on twitter using the hashtag #BIO2016, you’ll get a condensed version of the who, what, and how of BIO.

For those of you who are more partial to blogs, here’s a brief recap of the talks that we’ve attended so far:

Mitochondrial Disease Education Session

A panel of scientific experts and patient advocates gave an overview of mitochondrial diseases and the latest research efforts to develop therapies for mitochondrial disease patients. Phil Yeske of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation described his foundation as the largest funder of mitochondrial research next to the government. Their focus is on patient-centered therapeutic development and they’ve established a community registry of patients that makes patients the central stewards for research and clinical development.

The most moving part of this session was an impromptu speech by Liz Kennerley, a mitochondrial disease patient and advocate. She bravely spoke about the roller coaster of symptoms affecting all of the organs in her body and aptly described her daily experience by quoting Forest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” She ended with the powerful statement that patients are at the core of everything scientists do, and encouraged the panel to engage patients more often because they will tell you everything if you ask them the right questions.

Moving out of Stealth Mode: Biotech journalists offer real-world advice on working with media to tell your story

One of my favorite panels of the conference so far featured three biotech journalists, Christina Farr of Fast Company, Jeff Cranmer of BioCentury, and Alex Lash of Xconomy. It was a dynamic conversation about how biotech companies coming out of stealth mode can best pitch their story to the media. Take home points include:

• When pitching to a journalist, make sure that you are honest about what you can and can’t say. Have a “BS committee” that can address the validity of your work and your research claims.
• When pitching, journalists want to know what the problem is you’re trying to solve and how you are trying to solve it better than anyone else.
• On press releases: Unless it’s a press release from a big name, journalists won’t read it. The panel said they would prefer a personalized email detailing a company’s background and stage of work. They would also consider reading a press release that included a short personalized email from the company CEO.
• Most hated words used to describe research: “Revolutionary” “Game-changing” “Disruptive”.
  

  Moderator Carin Canale-Theakston with biotech journalists Jeff Cranmer, Alex Lash, and Christina Farr

Fireside Chat with University of California President Janet Napolitano

In an intimate Fireside chat, Janet Napolitano described her passion for higher education and making a difference in students’ lives. In her new role as the President of the UC system, her main focus is on aligning the policies and initiatives between the UC campuses and promoting research and innovation that can be commercialized around the world.

When asked about how she values basic research compared to applied research, Napolitano responded,

UC President Janet Napolitano

“We want an atmosphere where basic research is supported and one where innovation and entrepreneurship is fostered through incubators and public/private partnerships. We need to make these a tangible reality.”

 

Napolitano also mentioned that the UC system needs support from the private sector and gave PrimeUC – a collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Innovation that is part of her innovation and entrepreneurship initiative – as an example of a step in the right direction. You can read more about PrimeUC in this Event Recap.

From Ebola to Zika, how can we go faster in a global emergency?

I was only able to sit in on part of this expert panel, but here is the gist of their conversation. The global number of human infectious diseases is rapidly increasing every year due to hard-to-control factors like overpopulation, deforestation, and global climate change.  As a result, we’ve had two global health emergencies in the past two years: Ebola and Zika. We were more prepared to deal with the Ebola epidemic because more treatments were already in development. Unfortunately, we weren’t as prepared for Zika as it wasn’t on the world’s radar as a serious disease until 2015.

Martin Friede of the World Health Organization (WHO) said we should take what we learned from the recent Ebola outbreak and apply it to the Zika threat. He said the WHO wants to plan ahead for future outbreaks and remove bottlenecks to health benefits. They want to predict what diseases might surface in the future and have products ready for approval by the time those diseases manifest.

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That’s all for now, but be sure to read Part 2 of our BIO2016 coverage tomorrow on the Stem Cellar. We will give highlights from an entertaining and fascinating Keynote address with Dr. Bennet Omalu (the doctor who blew the whistle on concussion in the NFL) and Oscar-nominated actor Will Smith (who played Dr. Omalu in the movie “Concussion”) on “Knowledge precipitates Evolution”. I’ll also tell you about an eye-opening Fireside chat with the US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf, and much more!