BIO from the BAYOU: Build Your Biotech Network with Key Opinion Leaders and Investors
1 Oct 2025 · 17 min
0:00
In this episode of the Bio from the Bayou podcast, host Dr. Elaine Hamm interviews Patrick Reid, executive director of IPX at Auburn University, and Marcus Brown, licensing associate at LSU Health, to discuss the origins, evolution, and future of the BIO on the Bayou conference. They recount how the event began as a Tulane‑led initiative, expanded through collaborations with LSU, Xavier, University of Mississippi, and other Gulf South institutions, and grew into a destination conference that showcases early‑stage academic inventions, startup pitches, and panel discussions. The conversation highlights the conference’s unique format—10‑minute faculty/startup pitches followed by rapid Q&A, the integration of the Partnering One software for structured networking, and supplemental events such as the BioChallenge pitch competition, Bullpen investor gatherings, and informal social activities like cocktail breaks and Halloween festivities in New Orleans. The hosts emphasize the intimate, tight‑knit atmosphere that differentiates BIO on the Bayou from larger biotech meetings, its role in connecting regional innovators with national and international investors, and its commitment to offering diverse funding perspectives, including government and alternative sources. Practical details are provided, including the 2025 dates (October 28‑29), venue in New Orleans, and resources available on the conference website for registration, agenda, and presentation guidelines. The episode serves both as a promotional overview and a deep dive into how the Gulf South biotech ecosystem is being cultivated through this collaborative, community‑focused event.
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From groundbreaking research to global partnerships, and maybe a cocktail in between, BIO on the Bayou is where the Gulf South gets to tell its biotech story. You're listening to BIO from the Bayou, empowering biotech leaders with the tools, assets, and expertise to improve healthcare outcomes.
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Serving the entire Gulf South, but recorded in the heart of New Orleans. Hello and welcome back to Bio from the Bayou. I'm your host, Dr. Elaine Hamm, the executive in residence at Tulane School of Medicine. And joining me today are 2 amazing people. I'm going to have you guys introduce yourself. First up, we have Patrick Reid.
Hi, I'm Patrick Reid, executive director of IPX, Auburn University's technology transfer office, and a longtime participant in Bio in the Bayou. Excited to talk to you today.
And also we have Marcus Brown. Marcus.
Hello, I'm Marcus Brown. I am the licensing associate at the Office of Innovation and Partnerships, and we manage the technology transfer office here at LSU Health.
Amazing. And guys, what are we here to talk about today? You want to say it all on 3? 1, 2, 3. No, no, Patrick ruined it. All right, we're going to, we're going to talk about BIO on the Bayou. This is the BIO from the Bayou podcast, but really the OG was BIO On the bayou. And let's talk about the origin story. Okay. This is a conference that's been going on for a number of years. And Patrick, you were really involved in the inception of this. So let's talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, it originally started at Tulane and my colleague there, who you know very well, James Zanewicz, invited—
Never heard of him.
Never heard of him? Yeah. Never heard of him. Yeah. Invited LSU Health New Orleans to participate. And James and I, when we were both in the New Orleans region, had always worked to kind of grow the awareness of the ecosystem rather than our 2 individual institutions.
Rising tides lift all boats.
boats and all of that. And it really grew into something special. And so what happened when we put together this conference with the two of us expanded to include a lot of other universities in the Southeast region, including Puerto Rico, and has really been kind of a destination event, pulling in all of the things that you can't find on the East and West Coast. And we've really created kind of a destination marquee event for life sciences in the Southeast.
Yeah, it's such an overlooked region and it can be hard. I mean, New Orleans is a great draw. It's even harder to get things to come to Oklahoma, I have to say. We don't have the New Orleans appeal. So, when you offer up more than just one university, it really is appealing to get people from around the United States and beyond, because we've had several people from international companies come and do Bio on the Bayou, and it's just been really a great place to convene some really incredible investors, folks from industry, thought leaders, and KOLs to learn more about the incredible science that's going on in this region and really highlight it. And we don't often get that chance to be able to highlight not just the things that are going on at Tulane, but around the Gulf South region. And what do we call the Gulf South region here? Like, we go, it's kind of loosey-goosey if what we're pulling in is the Gulf South here. So.
Third Coast. South Coast. Yeah, I don't know.
Because it goes all the way up to Kentucky, um, as well as kind of looping in here. But let's see, what are our number of partner universities here? Can we name them all, or am I going to have to pull them up? I mean, so Tulane started it with Emerging Days. Then we invited LSU. You guys joined very readily. And then from there, we expanded. We included Xavier University. You mentioned Puerto Rico. We have University of Tennessee, Kentucky.
University of Mississippi.
Yep. Alabama. It's just really grown from a university of one to a great coalition of folks that are doing life science. Okay, well, let's talk about the— I mean, actually, Marcus, what was your first impression of this? Because, I mean, Patrick was there at the beginning. I was there at the beginning from an audience perspective, but what was your first impression of this?
Yeah, I think Patrick was here and he brought me in a couple years ago. I, Kind of came in after it was basically something special, right? It was nice because coming here looking for basically a job in life science here is pretty difficult because everything's in the East Coast and the West Coast.
Yep.
But it was nice to— once I started here and got involved in Bio in the Bayou, it was nice to see all of these overlooked universities in the Gulf South coming together, meeting with investors, everyone excited to talk about biotech in this region and that it's alive and well, right? And it was great. It was great.
Yep. That's what I really love about it is that you get to see some new science, some overlooked science. It's not picked over. It really is an incredible opportunity to find really cool science in a, well, a fun way, to be honest. So it's really a kind of a full week of innovation and biotech in New Orleans. We Have, you know, at the conference itself, we've also enjoyed having on the tail end, NOBIC does a BioChallenge. So they have a pitch competition usually at the end of the week. And so it's really tied up nicely to be a little bit of a destination. You come down to New Orleans for BIO on the Bayou, you get to stay for BioChallenge. But at BIO, the conference itself, let's talk about how it originally started. We were doing pitches from faculty members, and it wasn't just the ones that are startup companies or the ones that are in the process of being licensed. It showed some of their early stage stuff as well. And I thought that was really interesting. You get to see these really nascent ideas and follow their progress as they progress. But Patrick, like, let's talk a little bit about the presentations themselves and then how you guys structured it in the beginning.
Yeah, it's been an evolution. And I think first we've validated that BIO on the Bayou is a worthwhile event just because of the repeat customers we have from folks all over the country coming in and sponsors as well. It's interesting because when we did start, it was primarily focused on those academic inventors with their early-stage technologies. And while we are bringing that story to potential strategics and investors, we're also helping hone our inventors and our investigators with their pitches, stuff they're not really used to, to doing. You know, I think one of the biggest things is cutting them off straight at that 10-minute mark. I think there's been several years where people did not believe that I would cut the mic and take it from them, and I will snatch it out of your hands. We've got to keep the show rolling.
Right.
Yeah.
But it's been a great experience. And I think getting our life sciences startup ecosystem in front of these larger players from around the country, and like you said, internationally, I think has been hugely impactful.
Yeah, because it's a— the way that it's structured, it's a fun mix of all the things. So we have pitches from our faculty members, and you're right, they hate it. They hate, like, that we have to make them talk about their science in 10 minutes or less, especially like the really fancy—
That can't be done.
Yeah.
Oh, gosh.
Yeah.
And if you tell like a chair of a department, like, no, no, no, we're going to cut you off, they definitely don't believe it. And then they're—
Yeah.
They're like, oh, how dare you? But we know that, hey, from a commercialization perspective, if you're an industry partner, you don't, you don't have time for that. So, we try to keep it short and fast-paced. We intersperse presentations from faculty members, but also startup companies, and, and we sprinkle in a couple of really interesting panels. And I think that really makes for a fun mix of things. And then on top of that, we also concomitantly have the partnering part of it. So, Marcus, have you ever participated on the partnering side or was that your first experience with it? I've done a little bit of all the things.
It was my first experience with that. And I did, I enjoyed it much more than I did at BIO. It's probably BIO 5, because it's just those, it's so large. It's, there's all these groups and you don't, it's hard to get in there. But at BIO in the Bayou, I was able to get out of my introvert self and meet with a few people on the partnering. And then with the networking breaks, Those are pretty awesome because it's very intimate in a way. Yeah. Intimate. I don't know if that's the right word, but—
It is.
It is though. I think it is.
Yeah.
Right.
It's a really tight-knit group.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know what you're thinking about intimate, but I think it's intimate.
And then, so yeah, everyone's introducing everyone else and it's like a meeting with friends basically. Yeah. And it's a great way to network.
That, I mean, that's the exact, I mean, it's how I prefer to network. I mean, it isn't, you know, this, I mean, I love bio. I do, but like it is Fast-paced. It feels— I mean, you have 20 minutes, then you got to book it to the other side of the San Diego Convention Center. You're out of breath. You're like, who is this person? And then you have to lather, rinse, repeat 90 times that week. And here it's really taking the time to get to know people. And maybe you don't have a technology that fits them right now, but you never know when their strategy might change, when you might have a new technology that does fit their strategy. It's about building relationships and you get to meet with people that you may not have been able to meet with at BIO because everyone's schedule gets so jam-packed with things. So, it, it's really an opportunity to meet with those big players in, you know, that you may not get to see at JPM or one of the more established, long behemoth kind of conferences and conventions. So, the partnering piece, we use the Partnering One software, which is really nice. So, if you go to like BioEurope and some of the other conferences, you get to see, oh yeah, I met with them 3 years ago. It logs you in and you see all the things. And so, We've got our little big girl partnering system in there and it's really great.
Yeah, I think that's a differentiator for us. We are a smaller conference with more intimate grouping type deal, but we are powered with EBD Group's Partnering One software and it is a robust and feature-packed platform and it's hugely helpful.
Yeah, incredibly helpful. So we have a little mix of partnering. We have presentations, we have panels, we have The networking. Yes, Marcus, you mentioned that part of it. The breaks are the funnest part, honestly, because, you know, that's when you can actually really have good conversations and maybe a cocktail. I mean, it is New Orleans, so we have to add that.
Did we mention that BIO on the Bayou is in New Orleans?
Right, right.
Might have mentioned it. And on top of that, last year we've added a couple of new sort of additions. We added Bullpen. So our BIO on the Bayou partner, which brings in life science investors and companies And they have their own additional events on top of the bio— on the Bayou events. And so there were some really nice dinners that we got to go to, invite only, got to really meet some great people in the investment community. And then of course, as Ian loves it, we get to lay down like, I don't know, 100 podcasts or so. Ian, it feels like—
It's more like, it's more like 8, but it's still, you know, it feels like 100. Yeah. Reach out to me if you'd, if you'd like to be a guest potentially on, on the podcast at Bio on the Bayou. We sit down and actually do with our good microphones that I'm on right now, um, and lay down some episodes, talk about what you're passionate about. Reach out to me at imcLaughlin@tulane.edu. I'll be in the show notes and stuff.
Amazing. Yeah, it's been really fun to have this sort of mix of things. It's not just getting going and sitting in a very cold room drinking really Crappy coffee. Oh, I caught myself there. You didn't have to push the button for that one. Drinking burnt coffee and getting talked at for 2 days straight. And then you're— so, I mean, I don't see people on their phones or their laptops doing everything but paying attention. It's, it's got enough, I think, activities that you can find what really interests you. And if something doesn't interest you, well, just go next door and do some partnering or go lay down a podcast or do some networking in the reception area. So, I like the mix of things. I'm ADD. I wanna— I can only sit in a cold room for so long. So.
Well, and we really try to present things in bite-sized chunks. I think getting those investigators to keep it at 10 minutes, really, we say 7-minute pitch and then 3-minute Q&A, that really gets things moving through. So you get to see a huge spread of technologies and research and some of our startup opportunities.
Yeah, jam-packed. We try to keep it fast and furious. I think the only person to go over was me. So, as Patrick is probably not, is never gonna let me live down, right?
Yeah, that's right. You did. Yep.
All right. Anything else that we wanna add to this?
Yeah.
Well, I think one question that is always worth answering, who should attend? Who are the— who's the target audience for BIO on the Bayou? And I think Marcus mentioned something early on that's really important. Hey, if you're in the life sciences space and you're looking for an opportunity in the Gulf South, Perfect opportunity. We've had folks at previous events networking with others looking for some employment. If you're anywhere affiliated with any of this space, whether on the investment side or strategic partners, or just trying to break into this space and maybe working with some partner universities, we've got it all here. And yeah, we're happy to have you.
Amazing. Marcus?
I would also like to add that from our feedback last year, the panels were some of the highlights of Truly. Um, I, I, every time I went to just about all of them and all of them were packed.
Yeah.
Everyone was there listening. Couldn't wait to hear from the people we have up there.
Yeah. I, the panels are really, I think, something special. And it's not just the typical sort of VCs that get on stage and talk about the same soundbites that we've heard at all of the conferences. I think it gets a lot more, because it is intimate, as you said, Marcus, like you get, they tend to get a little more real about stuff. And we also add in things that I think are a little bit outside the box of your typical BD type of meeting, where we talk about how to really sell yourself and thinking about partnerships different too. So, we'll bring in government partnerships and talking about alternative funding sources. So, not just industry and VCs, here's some other ways to fund your science and move your startup company forward. So, I really like the— that's a great— the panels are fantastic.
Yeah, we're able to attract a great mix of folks that fill those panels. And I think every single year we've hosted the event, That has always been a highlight and why we've always tried to put more and more of those panels in because they're so, so impactful.
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, the panels have been so popular. It's like, oh, we still need to talk about the science and do our startup pitches. But, but at the same time, like, that's why the diversity I think is important. And we have the partnering piece. If you do want to learn more about science through that, you pick a day to do partnering and then do the panels the rest of the time. There's a great way to sort of mix and match what you want to do. So anything else you want to add, Patrick?
I think the only thing to cap it off is just, again, remind people it's in New Orleans and October 28th and 29th, as folks might know, is right before Halloween. And Halloween in New Orleans is quite the spectacle. So come for the science, stay for the spooky stuff. It'll be a good time.
Yeah. Yeah. I like to reiterate it is in New Orleans and I usually, my wife and I, we keep a running list of restaurants. I always give them out to any Tech Scouts out there and people I meet. It's like, hey, if you haven't been here, here's a list. And the list changes. We keep it updated all the time.
So, I think, yeah, that's a great point, Marcus. Like, if you come here, we're going to give you all of the things that you need to do to explore New Orleans proper. We will tell you the restaurants to go to, what tour you should take if you want, if you so desire. You get the non-touristy kind of vibe of New Orleans because, you know, it's run by people. In New Orleans. So we know where to go and where not to go, which I think is fantastic. And you're right, Halloween really is the most spectacular time to come to New Orleans, in my opinion. Like, it just has a different vibe.
Yeah.
Post-hurricane season, the weather isn't just unbearably hot and sweaty. You don't have to take a shower twice a day in October in New Orleans. And man, it, it just couldn't, it just can't be beat. It, it just has a very different vibe. And last year, Bullpen threw a masquerade party, which was just, Pretty awesome. I mean, we had people buying masks. In New Orleans, people brought their own masks. I did a little bit of both myself.
Me too.
And it was just really fun. We got to have the reception at Two Jacks, which is a New Orleans institution. And I don't know, it's just a really fun week. So I hope that you guys will join us. You'll go to buyonthebayou.com to learn more. And on that website, it gives the agenda, the registration information, hotel stuff. We even have a link to like how to present your startup company and all of that. And then some of the other opportunities that we have at Buy on the Bio on that website too. We talk a little bit about the New Orleans Bioinnovation Center and their BioChallenge program, which is this year focused on neuroscience. And then of course, our other partner, which is Bullpen. And if you're interested in sponsoring us, we do a lot of fun things to get you to sponsor. So, I mean, if you want a cocktail named after you, we are 100% down to do that at one of our receptions.
We can do that.
So come and join us in October and come for the science and stay for the New Orleans.
That's right.
As always, make sure to check out our informational links posted in our show notes, which will obviously be the bioonthebayou.com website, and come and join us in October.
Thanks for joining us for Bio from the Bayou, and we hope you'll join us again.
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