Thoughts on upcoming European events from a PR perspective
We are constantly being asked for advice on the conference and exhibition scene in Europe, and so with budgeting season coming up with alarming speed after the summer, here are a few tips on the current situation.
In general, shows related to drug discovery remain surprisingly strong, although we see growth of more niche therapeutic orientated shows with anything between 100 and 700 participants. Often these are the result of bundling by smaller organisers such as Select Biosciences (e.g. Stem Cells, Cellular Therapy and Biobanking in Edinburgh) to make economic sense, or by bigger conference groups, such as Terrapinn, striking lucky in the sector with their World Vaccine Congress in Lyon and Antibody Meeting in Geneva. Another interesting development we at Schwartz are involved with is the European Cancer Cluster Partnering Meeting bringing together biotechs, pharma, and investors in oncology.
On the device side, whilst diagnostics shows are limited, there is a bit of a resurgence. A good example of this resurgence is the recent ECIO (European Conference on Interventional Oncology) in Florence, which attracted a lot of interest despite being held in the heat of July after initially being postponed because of the dust cloud. Of course Medica still looms large, and should be your first port of call to meet potential distributors and get a feel for the market. Similarly, Analytica and Biotechnica are worth noting, but still need local German support to be worthwhile.
Moving on to biotechs, you could almost set up camp here since the calendar remains pretty full, starting with JP Morgan in January, running through Bio-Europe Spring in Milan in March, BioEquity in June in Germany/Switzerland, BPE in London in October and Bio-Europe in November (my personal favourite). The focus at all of these is on financing and partnering, and you will find it relatively easy to make contacts both the official way through the "partnering software" and unofficially through the networking over drinks/dinner etc. Another thing to remember is that organisers are constantly looking for a "fresh point of view" and so by putting yourself forward as a speaker or panel discussion member you can often offset your costs. Local meetings vary in strength across Europe, but it is worth looking at the UK again - with the ERBI (now One Nucleus) and Genesis conferences which bring together most of UK's biotech and Thistle Biotech in Scotland andBiotech Forum in Scandinavia.
Finally if you are looking to find out what's going on and just don't have the time to pop over, you can meet most of Europe at BIO or the ones in your field at the relevant major US show every year. And of course Schwartz is always willing to provide advice - I sit on various biotech and other network steering committees on a UK and European level and have plenty of contacts as does Kristina Ebenius in our Stockholm office.
Posted by Richard Hayhurst on September 1, 2010 at 5:16 PM
