Posted on: Wednesday, April 11, 2001
Biotech event may produce partnerships
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawai'i has played host to conventions far larger and more famous than the Biotechnology Industry Organization meeting set for next week.
For the state's biotechnology community, however, BIO AsiaPacific 2001 may be the best thing to hit Hawai'i since cloned mice.
BIO AsiaPacific, which will be held April 18-19 at the Sheraton Waikiki, is a working meeting expected to draw high-level executives from top biotechnology companies around the world to discuss business, strike deals and make contacts.
The meeting will only draw a few hundred attendees — about one-sixtieth of the 30,000 dentists to attend the American Dental Association meeting in Waikiki in 1999. It's far outdazzled by the Asian Development Bank, which could draw prime ministers and presidents when it comes to town later in May.
But BIO AsiaPacific offers something to Hawai'i that these high-profile meetings may never provide: a realistic chance for local biotechnology businesses to showcase themselves before a highly interested world audience.
"For Hawai'i to get this conference is a very cool thing indeed," said Keith Mattson, executive director of high-tech business and academic forum University Connections. "This meeting will give biotech companies the kind of exposure and publicity that they really can't get any other way."
Members of Hawai'i's relatively small biotechnology scene will use the conference to seek business partners for projects they hope will make the state a biotech magnet. Among the interested parties are the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine, the Queen's Medical Center, and many of the small life-science, agriculture and marine research companies that comprise the Hawai'i biotech community.
The medical school may need more than $70 million in private financing to help build a proposed medical research center in Kaka'ako. The BIO audience is the perfect place to look for potential financing and strategic partners, said medical school Dean Edwin Cadman, who is pushing the state Legislature to help finance the $150 million project.
Queen's is interested in finding corporate partners to do clinical trials of new drugs and medical equipment at hospitals here, said Glenn Magyar, Queen's manager of technology education and development. Such trials could draw top-notch researchers, grant money and the latest treatments to Hawai'i, Magyar said.
Smaller companies seek everything from potential financing to joint-venture partners. Many of the conference-goers are large pharmaceutical companies that could be interested both in Hawai'i's natural resources and in local research into unique chemical compounds, said David Watumull, president of 'Aiea research firm Hawai'i Biotechnology Group.
The state's combination of resources and research helped attract the Biotechnology Industry Organization to Hawai'i, event organizers said. The group known as BIO has become the main trade and lobbying organization for biotechnology corporations, representing members including traditional pharmaceutical companies (Bayer, Johnson & Johnson) and newer life-sciences firms (Genentech, Amgen).
The group's goal with the BIO AsiaPacific conference is to create ties between Asian and North American companies. Hawai'i is well-suited as a host city not only for the usual reasons — central location, U.S. soil, nice backdrop — but also because the industry is well aware of Hawai'i's potential strengths, said Peter Pellerito, a North Carolina-based industry consultant who helped persuade BIO to come to Honolulu.
"Hawai'i is a great common ground for business development between Mainland companies and Asia/Pacific companies," Pellerito said. "There's no better place to showcase what both are doing, and in the process, highlight some of the Hawai'i companies that are doing some really tremendous work.
"If this event is done appropriately, it will lead to the creation of companies that can start, grow and stay in Hawai'i."
