Episode 89: Preparing for BIO 2025 – Key Strategies to Maximize Biotech Conference Success

From hotel ballrooms to biotech breakthroughs, we break down the spring conference season and set the stage for BIO 2025 in June in Boston.

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Welcome back to Bio from the Bayou. I'm James Zanewicz, one of your hosts from Tulane Medicine.

And today's guest is me. No, just kidding. I'm also a host. We are— oh, that's bad if that's our one joke for the episode. So let's hopefully we do better.

But you want to tell them who you are?

Oh, I am Elaine, the executive in residence for Tulane University School of Medicine. And today we're going to be talking a little bit about conferences. My Favorite thing ever.

A little bit of a wrap-up from the spring and a little bit of a preview of what we think we've learned for BIO so people can take that into BIO, right?

Because that's coming up.

It's coming up.

Let's see, we've gone— you've gone to a ton of conferences this spring.

We did a JPM wrap-up already and talked about that a bit, so I think we can kind of gloss over that one and hop into— I guess next was the BIO CEO and Investor Forum, which was really interesting this year. And I think the The thing to take away and learn from that is those smaller conferences have a lot of value. You may have less meetings, but they're often more intentional and people are really there to, to get to know folks, to build relationships and do the work. And something we can't talk in detail about yet, but a 10-year relationship with an investment firm may turn into something really cool for Tulane.

Yeah.

That all came out of, honestly, at the last minute, a week before the conference, you and I sitting down and saying, yep, you should go and do it. And I think we had only like 25-ish meetings in the 2 days there. So it was lighter than usual for us. But, you know, had some really intentional meetings with investors, with BIO themselves, with companies, and some really potentially good outcomes. People are looking to partner, they are looking to collaborate, they are looking to find creative ways to move things forward. And that's kind of what I took out of the BIO CEO and Investor Forum.

My takeaway from you going to that conference is that you've really curated a long-term relationship with, you know, really no expectation that you guys going to do a deal next week. It was more of just building a friendship and a trustworthy sort of colleague conversation that you've had over the last 10 years. And I think that that's an important piece when we think about conferences. It's not just the deal today, but really about building relationships.

And that's something that Tari Sopratto always says. You know, Tari's at Novo now, but she always talks about how she's like, hey, get to know me and build a friendship so that when you have something, I pay attention. And I think we saw that transform itself into reality for us this year. And so moving on from that, I guess next was BioEurope, right?

Yeah, then we had BioEurope, which honestly was a big shift from what I feel like was a pretty positive JPM. I don't know if you've heard, it's been a little chaotic these days, just for your awareness. And it was a little bit of a different vibe at BioEurope than what I think we felt at JPM. My own company kicked off our fundraising in late 2024. And everything had such great momentum, and then it felt like we were kind of screeching to a halt a little bit. So that was a little bit of a change, but I still think that there's a lot of people interested in doing deals. I will say that it feels like there's a shift to want to do things more, you know, late stage and that type of thing. However, I will say that the smaller, like, VC firms and the smaller to mid-sized pharma companies are the ones that I think are gonna really take up the banner in terms of moving things forward. I've had really solid conversations with investors and pharma partners that are thinking about the long game and are willing to take the risk now. Whereas I think some of the larger, more traditional firms and pharma companies are holding off a bit. And so I think it's going to be an interesting shift.

Yeah, and I think that reflects a lot of what we heard both at BioEurope and then at BioTrinity just a week later when I went to that. It very much is that seed and Series A and family offices are still there and still very much looking. And I think part of that, they're able to get slightly better deal terms, which is opening their pocketbooks a little more, I think. And it's a little tougher on the companies, but also it's an opportunity as well. And I think they're aware that they may have to give some of that up as things even out and the funding market comes back into more of a balance.

Yeah.

but they'll be in a better position. And if you're able to keep your company alive and keep your science moving forward, they may be gambles worth taking. And is, is that fair to say? Because, you know, I'm not a company CEO. I just learned from you.

No, it's, it's true. And, you know, I've also read a couple of things that about family offices in particular, about they're wanting, you know, a different type of return instead of investing in funds. They're wanting to invest in companies more directly, which I think is an interesting turn too. And I think that's a really great opportunity for family offices to to really, I don't know, have a meaningful investment and get to know their investments. I mean, it's not just, you know, an arm's length away. You could actually invest in something that could cure MS, for example. Reach out to me for details to learn more. It is interesting to see that shift. And also, you know, even though it was a little bit of a, well, I don't know, not a negative experience at BioYear, just more of like a more conservative, you know, approach to the market, Bruce Booth had an, interesting blog posts that really show that there's some positive movements in the market, and that I don't think all is lost this year. So I'm still pretty positive in moving our Series A forward too.

Yeah. And even with some of the craziness we have in the US right now, I will say, you know, Europe, from academic collaborators to ecosystems, they're very much looking to collaborate with US companies, US innovators, and academic institutions. And you just, you have to find that partner and build those relationships with You know, EU academic centers or EU companies or EU firms in order to access it. And it may just be that we're not driving as much as we used to be.

Yeah.

But, you know, there are still opportunities to expand and to grow in ways that I think were kind of that, that bottom tier that you got to last. But now it might be where we should be looking first for some of those partnerships.

Yeah, absolutely. And I was very encouraged by the sort of collaborative environment that I felt at BioEU.

Yeah, and I think the same at BioTrinity, because we actually met with UK foundations and they were like, hey, partner with us. Here's what we're interested in. If you have investigators, send them our way. You know, we always love to have good scientists as part of our projects, and you just have to find someone to collaborate with here and it routes through them. But as long as you do that, and that often generates better science as well.

Mm-hmm.

So it could be that while we're looking at this and there are a lot of difficulties and a lot of slowdowns, It may have some creative spark as well, because often out of adversity come the greatest ideas.

Yeah, I mean, you have to get a little scrappier. And I think we're probably gonna have a podcast about sort of, you know, how to manage, you know, in dark times and how to deal with budgets when they're getting tighter and tighter. So it's definitely something that I think when you are forced to get scrappy, you never know what can happen from there. But from BioTrinity, we started to think about, of course, BIO US coming up in June. I mean, we were already prepping probably Right around BIO Europe, we were already gearing up for BIO US. So let's talk a little bit about like how we prepare for BIO US.

We do a lot of work, lots and lots and lots of work. And by we, I mean, you know, you and I, but also Alexis Decote on the team who painstakingly comes through, you know, looks at what are people interested in this year, what are they actually advertising, or what are they secretly interested in that we have to do our background work to find out. What can we extrapolate from, you know, our last 5 to 10 years of relationships with kind of their growth trajectory? Sometimes, you know, packing in those secret blue sky things that they don't talk about, where I think we have seen that many companies have kind of done away with their, their open blue sky divisions, but they still kind of have them. You just have to, to search a little harder to find them.

Yeah, I agree. And I think again, like the smaller to mid-sized companies might be interested in doing more innovative things while everyone else is sort of, you know, battening the hatches. So, but as it relates relates to just prep, one of the very first things that I have remembered to do is just block off my calendar so that I have room for lunch. That is a tip that you always remind me of. Like, I go through my calendar schedule and block off lunch, and then I start digging into what are the sessions that I might want to attend. And there's a lot of great panels this year. We're both with the AIH. We have 2 great panels on AI and healthcare and agentic AI. So it's going to be really— an interesting opportunity to learn a lot about biotech and AI right now. And so the conferences, we tend to forget. We go right into partnering, and we forget, oh, yeah, there's all kinds of sessions too. And those can be incredible opportunities to meet new people.

And that was something that Kimberly Graham reminded us of at BIO-EU because you and I tend to just go and do meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting. And Kimberly had a little balance where she did some sessions. And I employed that strategy again at BIO Trinity. And I used to do that more. And it's amazing how you just meet people sitting by them, and you may learn some things that you wouldn't have otherwise.

100%. Kind of reinvigorates you a little bit. And then we start going through and looking through sort of like, you know, as you said, of like what's— what seems to be of interest this year at BIO. What are people looking for? We do a nice mix, I think, of large pharma, mid to small size pharma. We do some investors in terms of our meeting requests. And we also follow up with people, again, relationship building, follow up with people that we've been, you know, having conversations with for the past— oh, how long have we been doing this?

Dawn of time. Not to age us.

And then, you know, once we get the schedules, you know, all sort of figured out, we start building our lovely partnering packets, which is a mix of information about the company that we're meeting with, what assets or what technologies or what programs are we going to be talking about with them. I always like to throw in a picture of them as well, just because when you walk into one of those little tiny booths, you never know who you're meeting with. And so it's, sometimes you walk into the wrong booth and they're down there.

Sometimes you're like, wait, you're not on my packet. You're new.

Exactly. Exactly. Wait a minute. Then I also look to see if we're LinkedIn, you know, connected as well. See if there's people that we have in common. You never know. It is a small biotech world. And so we prep those packets. And then we also think about sort of receptions that we want to go to in the evenings. The, you know, after a day full of partnering, I usually just want to rip my Spanx off and, you know, order room service and hide from the world until the next day. But those, those receptions are important.

And I think the other thing that most people overlook, because we've talked a lot about the straights, the straight up kind of tasks you do for bio and how to prep for the meetings and the partnering and the conference, but we often forget the communications piece leading up, and most people do. And I think that's where we're really fortunate to have, you know, Carolyn Schofield as a member kind of of our team. And she's gone to BIO once, so she's seen it and kind of understands it and helps us, helps us prepare content for LinkedIn. And I'll say that was one of the topics from BIO Trinity that I really took out of it is that, you know, too many people kind of have a challenge with LinkedIn that it is holding companies back because investors are spending more and more time on there or, or partners. And it has become where before it was sort of a, oh, it's, it's my professional Rolodex. It's where people go for content to find things, to find jobs, to, to, to see who's doing what. And if you're actually, you know, once a week posting an interesting piece of content, and that can be a little paragraph in front of another article you read, you don't have to write the whole article. But give your thoughts on it and repost it to bring attention to other folks in your network. It can really help position you. And, and it's what Carolyn always likes to say, instead of storytelling, you're storymaking. And you're building that story around yourself and what kind of who you are as an individual and who your company is as an entity. And that can help people get to know you and feel comfortable. And maybe they click accept on that meeting invite amid the hundreds of thousands that are sent because they saw something from you on LinkedIn that someone they knew shared.

Not me panicking and thinking like, oh my gosh, are people really looking at LinkedIn? Uh-oh.

Yes, they are.

What did I post on there? Uh-oh. Good point. I'll have to think of my LinkedIn profile a little bit more. It is funny though. Like I'll meet people that have recognized me from, from my LinkedIn mainly because I wear crazy glasses. But you know, I think that's the part of the branding piece I think is really important as you are trying to navigate conferences.

Well, that's often where we go to get the photos of people when we're looking and you, as you pull the photo down. you can see things they've, they've posted or talked about or areas they're interested in, which can provide you with that opportunity. Because as we talked about, that sustained presence can turn no into yes, even if it's years later. And you start to build that sustained presence with more than, hey, we're here, here's the things we have to show you. What do you have that you're interested in from us? But to, to actually be able to have that comment or discussion around a topic of interest.

Well, and I always do like what we call our professional stalking. I want to understand their background. I mean, if they are a neuroscientist and have a PhD in neuroscience, I definitely want their opinion and their feedback about our MS program. And so understanding that it's more than just like, buy from me, take my thing.

It's a know and why. It's so you have information.

Yeah, absolutely. And so knowing someone's background, yes, it probably is a little creepy when I come in with a dossier.

I blame you when they see the pictures. I'm like, Elaine makes me do this. It's her professional stock.

I'm sorry.

I 1,000% say it's your fault.

I live out of the bus. It's fine. But it really is helpful. I mean, I go to BIO not just to sell a thing, but to get feedback and make sure that what we're doing is aligned with what industry wants to see too. So, what better way than to go talk to a neuroscientist?

And you've shifted focus of your companies before based on that kind of feedback that you've gotten, right? Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, which is amazing because you may have multiple avenues for an asset and you may be like, this is not the one, but this is because People are interested in this, and it allows you to maintain viability versus perhaps proceeding down a path that could end in closure.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think the, the other bit that, that I always give you so much credit for, Elaine, is you are so good at follow-up, and you're usually prepared in advance of the meeting with most of your follow-up written. So all you have to do is go in and populate it, and you have yours out so quickly where I'm struggling for weeks to get that stuff together. But ChatGPT can be our friend in that, as I learned when I was sitting at BIO Europe finishing my follow-up from JPM. But I was like, I got my little chatbot trained to understand here are the pieces he likes and here's how to piece them together. And it was firing out my connection emails for me, my follow-up emails so quickly where I did a little tweak. We always talk about AI. AI is such a great tool, both for getting pre-research. It has become what Google is and it's replacing Google more so 'cause people just go into ChatGPT or Perplexity or, you know, name their favorite AI chatbot. To get the information they need.

Well, and I'm going to try something different this year and actually type up my notes and then feed those into ChatGPT and see what it comes up with in terms of ask. I mean, Secrets Box, I was not great about my ask. BioEurope, I'm still working on them. I try to get them done on the plane ride home and get it out of the way. That is my goal. But, you know, one thing that I struggle with, you would think after, I don't know, 44 years, I would know myself. But like, I'll have conversations with people and like, I'm totally going to remember exactly what we talked about. I don't need to write Girl, yes, you do. You 100% need to write it down. What are you talking about?

Meanwhile, I'm taking notes the whole time and I can't read my handwriting. So there's that.

Oh, yeah, there's that too.

Yeah, yeah. Like, Elaine, what's this? You were there. You're like, I don't know.

I have no— I have no— I can't even read my own handwriting. But I look at our perfect little packets that have a section just for notes and I'm like, I wrote one word. That's not helpful at all, Ham. So what I did, what I've been doing is at the end of the day, I'll go through and I'll write down notes about what we talked about. I always like to add a visual cue just because that Triggers it better in my memory of like, oh, this person had, you know, a red shirt and green glasses. Like, that will help me sort of remember, oh yeah, yeah, I know, I remember what we talked about. And I'll add like personal— if we talked about personal things too, I'll add that to my notes just so I can touch upon that in my follow-ups. But you have to take notes. And, you know, that's the biggest thing is because I'll look back at it and go, I have no idea what we talked about. That would be my hint is to take notes. And then I think this year I'm going to put it all into ChatGPT and see what it comes up with. So. Just an experiment.

And one of my last little tips, 'cause I know we're getting the sign from Ian to wrap up soon, but one of my last, one of my last things that I got this year from BioTrinity that I thought was really cool, and I had not realized that Apple Intelligence had incorporated it just in your phones. If you get permission from people to record a conversation, of course, it was Europe, so everyone asked, it will generate a transcript just on your phone from the voice memo function, which, you know, if somebody says, yeah, I don't mind if you record this, you get everything you talked about in Notes. 'Cause I think you and I both remember more by actually writing, 'cause it's how we learned than typing.

That's it.

Because we're— Because we're older.

Because we're old.

You're slightly older than some of the younger BD professionals, but that was a really cool tip.

That was a really weird Ian laugh, by the way.

Oh yeah, he's back there. He's like, heh heh heh. He's 25 now. He's old too. It's fair. I'm like a quarter of a century. Sounds so much older. But that was a cool tip that I learned. And I think if you go in and ask people and they say yes, it's a great way to have additional notes and say, hey, I'll share it with you too. I'll send you these notes, which may help you as well. And I had someone offer that. They're like, hey, do you want me to send you these? I was like, yes, please. But it's a great way to perhaps fill in some gaps that you have in your handwritten notes too.

Get consent, but yes.

Yes. Yes, consent is sexy, even in biotech.

Even in biotech. Yeah, and I don't know if Massachusetts is like a one-party state in terms of reporting. Yeah, just go ahead and ask.

Yeah, always ask. But with that, anything else we should talk about for this other than people should request to meet with us at BIO? Of course they should.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that we're gonna be hosting a reception. And I'm actually going to do 2 new things at BIO that I haven't even told you. I'm going to go to RESI, which is the Monday before BIO gets going. So I'm going to go to RESI, and I'm also going to be hosting a dinner in Boston with my co-founder Carol Curtis to meet with some of our potential investors. And so we're going to get the most bang for our buck in Boston.

So I like it because talk about the several hats you're wearing, and then I'll talk about my couple hats as well. Just so people know.

So my, my hats right now are Cadenza Bio. We're raising money for our multiple sclerosis drug, which is a drug that was focused on remyelination as well as immunomodulation. And we have a secondary program in endometriosis. So we are meeting with a lot of neuro companies, a lot of women's health companies, which is becoming an interesting trend. And then I'm also wearing my Otologix hat, which is hearing loss and tinnitus. And of course, my Too Late hat. Always.

Yep. And then, of course, I always have my Tulane hat, but I have my brand new additional silo. Oh, yeah.

Tell us about that.

Of Maker. And Maker is really cool. It is a— it's not just an investment firm. It's a hybrid of a, of a holding company, private equity, and a venture fund. They're really focused on how to maximize profits for their investments. They're gonna pair them with that marketing agency that's AI driven that they have as part of it as well. And they're a vet agency, and they really wanna increase deal flow, and they're focused on AI and new energy is what their areas are. But AI really as it pertains to like bio and health tech, which is cool. And then, you know, of course, always love talking about anything AI related. And then my last side hustle is running the Biotech Transfer Academic Industry Committee. And so anyone who's interested in that should talk to me as well. Would love to get folks more engaged there because together we can solve things.

I love it. I'm excited about your new role. You get to be on the other side of the table at those partnering meetings, which is—

I know, it's crazy.

Sometimes the funner side, you know? So, well, that's gonna be really cool.

This is what we're doing. We can't wait to see everyone at BIO in Boston in mid-June. We are there the whole week. And if you're going to the Advanced BD education course in advance, Dr. Alexis Dacoti will be there. He did the basic BD last year. He's in year 2 with us. And so we're sending him to advanced BD. So he'll roll into BIO 3 days into being tired. Oh, and then I did forget one thing. Of course, the bullpen always. We'll be bouncing over there a little bit as well.

Yeah.

While Elaine sneaks off for a day for resi, I'll probably sneak off for a day for the bullpen. Alexis will want to murder us, but it's all going to work out.

He'll be fine.

He's younger than us. It's all good.

But we got to— I'm kind of, uh-oh, we got a lot going on. So we better get to planning. It makes me want to go start working on my packet right now.

All right, back to work we go. Let's do it. All right. Thanks, Elaine.

All right. Thanks.

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