Episode 7: Bio on the Bayou - A Premiere Biotech Event with Key Opinion Leaders James Zanewicz and Patrick Reed

You're listening to Bio from the Bayou, featuring stories and industry insights from experts in the bustling biotech scene of New Orleans.

The entire Gulf Coast region is buzzing with expertise and excitement. We're here to bring you frontline access to this vibrant ecosystem direct from NOLA, the city that provides a little lagniappe with everything we do.

Where people come for the science and stay for the food, festivals, and resilient culture. I'm Patrick Reed at LSU Health.

And I'm James Zanewicz from Tulane University. Welcome back to Bio from the Bayou. I'm James Zanewicz from Tulane University.

And I'm Patrick Reed from LSU Health New Orleans.

And today we are both hosts and guests, one of our favorite things to do.

That's right.

Yeah, so Patrick, events are back and 2022 started to get really busy towards the end of the year. And while I think we both know that virtual events have a place and were quite useful during the pandemic when There was no other option. They don't replace everything.

Yeah, absolutely. After too long of a break, we were finally, finally able to host BIO on the Bayou in New Orleans this year.

So for those folks out there who don't know what BIO on the Bayou is, our history was that we started as a New Orleans-only event when we had a Tulane-centric event and Patrick came to me and said, hey, why don't we do something together? And so we did. It was featuring only LSU Health and Tulane science at first. And then in 2020, we had planned to add Ole Miss and Allison And Vestad agreed to come in with us and work on that. And then of course the pandemic happened, so that year it did not happen. Yeah, COVID ruined all the things and all the fun.

Yep.

And so when we came back, we thought about just including Ole Miss, then thought, well, why don't we make it even bigger? And so we reached for the stars this year, and I think we established what has become a truly regional life science research symposium. We had 11 institutions presenting from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and it was exciting research, innovations, and startups.

Yeah, it definitely seems like this is growing into something special for the Gulf South region. You've got your East Coast and West Coast events. We're also establishing events for our coast. Attendance exceeded expectations. We formally organized meetings with the Partnering One software and the networking was incredible.

Right. And this happened without nearly as much planning as we would have liked. And we'll get a little bit into that more later. With preparations already underway for 2023, however, it's sure to be bigger and better. potentially with some new content for even larger audiences. Now, Patrick, when you were talking a bit ago, you mentioned Partnering One, which was new to a lot of people at BIO on the Bayou, and especially on the academic side, I think. Can you talk about that a bit?

Yeah, I think it really made the event a lot more impactful to all attendees on both the academic and our external partner side. It's an industry standard software developed by the EBD Group. It's used at places like Biotech Showcase, BIO Europe, BioPharm America, Meeting on the Mesa, and Meeting in the Med. Lots of different places. And number one, it allows you to set up networking opportunities, one-on-one meetings with folks you want to work with and try to partner with. It also allows you to post your opportunities. So I can put up my available technologies, my innovative research, maybe centers that you could take advantage of. And I think it went beyond what is being presented at the meeting and almost created another meeting at the meeting. So we had our debrief within a week of us closing down the event. Why do you think that BIO on the Bayou was so successful this year?

Well, I think there were a number of reasons. First of all, we had great corporate and investment attendance as well as government and foundations. But one of our attendees actually added up the amount of funds from all the investment firms that we had here and went, holy, there are serious dollars in this room. And that was true. And it wasn't a massive room to have that. So that was impressive, right? We'd done this before and we definitely listened to feedback from our corporate venture investor and other attendees. You know, they asked for short pitches, so we have 7-minute presentation, like a business pitch from scientists, 3-minute Q&A. Next, the ability to talk to them about deeper science afterwards. We had more partners involved, which was one thing we really heard. People said it was great for Tulane and LSU Health to do this together and that we should expand. So we did that with Ole Miss, or planned to. And then when we brought it back, we thought, well, let's just go to what we hope this evolves to. And we did a great job with some tremendous partner universities who really put their money where their mouth was, not only took part, but paid to bring their scientists in and paid to be here and take an active part in partnering. We also had panels, which was content for the industry investor and other attendees, as well as the academic attendees. It gave them a showcase to talk about what their needs are, what their wants are, any issues they saw and ways we might overcome them. But also they got to learn from each other. It was a bit like a C-suite type conference as well, which I think added a lot of value for those attendees. And it was more intimate than a JPM, a BIO, you know, those places that have 16,000, 5,000, 30,000 people. We were right in that sweet spot of 100 to 200 where people could find everyone. It was great to walk out and just see people sitting in comfortable chairs and having casual meetings that just happened on the spot, as opposed to the formal meetings that were set up at the partnering tables. And I think that's a lot of where that value came from. And we've talked a lot about the value to the external partners, but Patrick, why do you think the participating institutions like LSU Health, Tulane, whoever else, or let's put it another way, What did they get out of the event?

Eyeballs. Honestly, like you and I have been saying for years, we make a much more convincing case for our external partners to come to New Orleans and take a look at our science when we work together. I certainly think that inviting and including Mississippi and Kentucky to the event helped us attract more attendees from industry and the investment community. And we heard that from several people that responded to the survey we sent after the event. We were able to highlight great science and startups like T-Vamp from Tulane, which I believe is a new vaccine adjuvant. Some new antiviral compounds from Jackson State University, new cancer chemotherapies from University of Kentucky.

And if I remember right, and I think you made a joke about how I might actually need this, LSU Health had some great science, like a way of preventing brain injury.

Yeah, that's right. From our Neuroscience Center of Excellence. Yeah. And there was a lot more science as well. 20 presentations total. When BIO was a go, we quickly determined conferences were back. We assembled this pretty quickly.

Really quickly. Too quickly.

In a matter of 2 to 3 months, and it really worked. With the dates already announced for next year and us having more time to both reflect on what worked well and plan for next year, I think we're going to be providing even more value to our attendees, me included.

R. We're not prone to faint praise, that regional events are where things are going. They're a little smaller, where you can find the people you want to talk to, where you don't feel run down at the end of the day. And how Bayou on the Bayou is looking is turning exactly into one of those things. As we talk about always, there are 3 coasts. We think ours is the best because it has New Orleans. We're a little more affordable and we're a little more fun. Absolutely.

So we can safely say we evolved and established a successful regional event, I think. So what additional content should we be providing?

Well, I think what we've talked about is that for BIO in the Bayou, people talked about leaving as the least favorite thing about the conference, that it ended too soon. So expanding to 2 fuller days, and we say fuller 'cause we don't start at 8:00 AM in New Orleans. We're a little civilized here.

Oh, yeah.

We understand people are going to dinner, probably to hear some music, that bars and restaurants don't close, and we want them to show up when we start around 10:00 AM. We'll also have some side events. We had a couple of those this year. We did a little brainstorming on ways to position the region for AI drug discovery with some amazing partners from outside. People around the table from the entire city coming together and doing some great, great, great whiteboarding, brainstorming around that, adding in some additional things like that potentially during the conference. But what we really heard was it works, it works, it works. So we may tack on some pre- and post-events, maybe a version of South CEO coming back or some things like that. Is there something I'm missing? What do you think?

Yeah, I think a few years back before the whole pandemic was our famous intimate breakfast with our deans for some of our key attendees. It's worth getting up for. I really want to bring that back. And, you know, as we're talking about growing this, and I'm excited about this event getting larger and being an attractor for our region, we definitely want to keep Bio on the Bayou organic and have that intimate feel. And it seems that the best way for us to maintain that is to keep building out an event that you and I would pay a lot of money to attend. But by keeping registration reasonable through sponsorship, we ensure we get an excellent university representation.

I think that's absolutely true.

So we've talked about how amazing it was in 2022, and I'm pretty sure we have made a lot of folks that missed the event jealous. And we've talked about what to look forward to on BIO on the Bayou in 2023. When is it? Give us the details.

So it's on October 3rd and 4th, 2023, and people might want to block off the day before and after, either for side content or just New Orleans excursions. We have great other things to see in the city, whether that's the National Primate Research Center, one of 7 in the country, our simulation centers at LSU Health or at Tulane, Visiting the beach out at UNO. There are tremendous opportunities here if you want to do a work excursion, and you could also combine that with some fun. You could go out to dinner. You could invite people to go out and listen to music as you're meeting. There are great opportunities in this city to work hard and play hard all at the same time, and people really won't want to miss the Gulf South Regional Research Showcase of 2023.

I know I'm looking forward to it. So for industry, foundation, and investor partners who want to take part, find us at any industry event we may be attending, or just email James, me, or Allison Best at University of Mississippi. And if you want information on BIO on the Bayou 2022, look at some of the presentation videos or PowerPoints that we'll have up, or to get info on the 2023 event as it comes together, visit bioonthebayou.com.

Well, I think that's a wrap for this episode of BIO from the Bayou. Thanks to everyone for tuning in.

We'll drop our next set of podcasts at BIO International in June and see you there, and hopefully again in New Orleans at BIO on the Bayou 2023.

And as always, key contact info and relevant links will be posted in our show notes. Make sure you check them out if you want to keep up to date with our activities at Tulane University, LSU Health, or any of our Bio on the Bayou collaborators. And be sure to check out Bio on the Bayou '23, once again happening October 3rd and 4th right here in New Orleans. So make sure you block your calendars from the 2nd through the 5th and make your travel arrangements. Thanks for joining us for Bio from the Bayou. And we hope you'll join us again.

If you'd like to learn more about the emerging biotech scene in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, visit us at biofromthebayou.com, where we have more info on who we are, how to get involved and connected in biotech in New Orleans, and the industry events we'll be hosting where you can meet with us in person.

And we'd be remiss if we didn't give a special thanks to the Accelerator Network for providing funding for this podcast. Learn more about them in our show notes.

We'll catch you on our next episode of Bio from the Bayou.