BIO 2013 - Chicago

KingPhoenix:

I'm a healthcare VC, so take my perspective for what it's worth.

BIO is the biggest biotech conference by attendance, and that's not a good thing. Most investors/pharma companies set up one on one meetings through the partnering platform, which is where the real value lies. There will be a lot of biotech industry vendors and mid-level professionals wandering around, who (at least from a VC perspective) are not that useful to go to, and the huge number of people attending makes it hard to network.

If you have a targeted list of individuals who you know are attending (using their web platform), and can set up meetings beforehand, that would be a lot more useful.

Some of the panels may be mildly interesting, but the quality is highly variable and generally lower than conferences such as JP Morgan or the BIO CEO or BIO Investors Conference because of the sheer volume of panels. Some panels can be pretty bad, but the international presence could be one plus.

I'm personally not a fan of the main BIO event. It's fine for partnering, but I wouldn't expect too much from it if you're already in the industry. It might be interesting if you've never worked in industry though in terms of getting a broad overview.

In terms of news flow - not much tends to be announced at BIO - maybe partnerships. Most real news will happen at JPM or the big specialty conferences (ASCO, AACR, etc.).

Awesome information. I'll start setting up some conferences and network extensively.

Thanks KingPhoenix.

roofstreet:

its kinda useless.

It's already paid for, so I'll get the best out of it. Thank you for the input.