Partnering intensifies in Milan at BIO-Europe Spring®
BIO-Europe Spring® welcomed the life science community back to a sunny Milan where the mood of executives seemed to perk up like flowers after what several called a long six months of doom and gloom for the industry.
Carola Schropp, President of EBD Group, welcomed 1,560 participants from 44 countries, a 15 percent increase over BIO-Europe Spring 2008 in Madrid.
At the same time, she noted, the intensity for partnering jumped a record 25 percent with more than 7,000 one-to-one meetings scheduled between participants using the partneringONE™ software before the executives had even arrived at the Milan Convention Centre.
“The partnering dynamic is helping to fill the void for biotech companies created by the faltering financial markets,” she said, adding that partnering has evolved from business development to become a primary path to financing.
“Partnering is becoming so vital for the industry that analysts have now taken the term M&A and coined the expression P&A for Partnerships & Acquisitions,” Schropp said.
The record attendance at BIO-Europe Spring, following on the heels of the highly successful BIO-Europe meeting held four month earlier, firmly establish these events as the largest stand-alone partnering events in the world.
Joining Carola Schropp on the podium to welcome life science executives were officials from the city of Milan and the Lombardy region, as well as the directors for Assobiotech and Farmindustria.
Prof. Luigi Rossi Bernardi, the former Chairman of Italy’s National Research Council and currently the President of the Municipal Council of Milan, noted that BIO-Europe Spring had grown considerably since the first meeting was held in Milan in 2007.
Participation increased more than 30 percent in just two years, he said, while the number of partnering meetings among delegates increased 75 percent from that inaugural event.
With a population of just one million, he said, Milan hits well above its weight, known most famously as the world’s fashion design capital with 800 showrooms, and ranks as the world’s 28th largest economy. Less well known, he said, is that 17 percent of the population are students pursuing degrees at eight different universities in the city.
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