WisBusiness: Wisconsin presence rebounds at BIO 2010 in Chicago

By Brian E. Clark
For WisBusiness.com

Wisconsin will increase its presence at this year’s international biotechnology convention – BIO 2010 – by nearly 70 percent over 2009.

Last year, when the gathering was held in Atlanta, only 31 Badger State companies and organizations made the trek to Georgia.

This year the location for the conference is Chicago and the number has jumped to 51, said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, which is coordinating the state’s effort for the first time.

“Part of it was the down economy last year, but the biotech industry appears to be bouncing back in a number of sectors,” said Still.

He said he anticipates that at least 125 Wisconsinites will attend the confab, which runs from Monday through Thursday at the Windy City’s McCormick Place Convention Center.

Last year, he said fewer than 15,000 people from the international biotech community showed up in Atlanta. This year, organizers are expecting up to 20,000.

“Another reason for the low numbers of participants from Wisconsin was the location,” he added. “This year, it’s in Chicago again, so it’s a lot easier for companies to make the commitment to drive down to Illinois.”

The state’s pavilion space has been downsized from 1,600 to 600 square feet, but Still said Wisconsin officials will be working closely with Minnesota, which is in a neighboring booth, other Midwestern states and the Canadian province of Manitoba.  

“Biosciences are leading industries in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Manitoba, and there’s every reason to work together for growth when there are opportunities. The 2010 BIO International Convention is an opportunity to connect,” said Still.

The Wisconsin pavilion on the BIO exhibition floor includes the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, University Research Park, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Morgridge Institute for Research, the WiCell Research Institute, the Waisman Clinical BioManufacturing Facility and the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative.

Still said the focus at BIO will be on networking and drumming up business for Wisconsin biotech companies and institutions.

“The theme is collaborate, commercialize and connect,” he said. “That sums up what’s going in this state with everyone from researchers to companies to investors.”

“We’ve also got a strong effort going to get companies down there for so-called ‘speed dating for biotech,’ so they can make those all-important contacts with people from this country and abroad,” Still said.

And while most of the organizations that attended previous BIOs were from the Milwaukee-to-Madison corridor, this year’s delegation is more geographically diverse:

  • Under the banner of Thrive, the regional economic development group for south-central Wisconsin, visitors to the pavilion will find Alliant Energy, Madison Gas & Electric Co., the city of Madison, the Fitchburg Technology Neighborhood and the City of Middleton Area Development Corp. The Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau is also attending.

    Tech-based companies from the Madison region with presence in the pavilion are Anteco Pharma, DNASTAR, Exact Sciences, Gilson Inc., Intense Engineering, Promega, Scarab Genomics, Scientific Protein Laboratories and TRAC Microbiology.

  • Western Wisconsin will be represented through Momentum West, which covers 10 counties as well as educational institutions such as UW-River Falls, UW-Stout, UW-Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley Technical College – home to the NanoRite Innovation Center. About $10 million in academic research and development takes place each year at those UW campuses.
  • Milwaukee will be represented by the BloodCenter of Wisconsin, UW-Milwaukee and the UWM Foundation.
  • Still said central Wisconsin will be anchored by the Marshfield Clinic, one the nation’s leading private clinics, and the Marshfield Chamber of Commerce. The Marshfield Clinic conducts about $25 million in research annually in animal and human fields.

Madison-based Promega did not participate in the pavilion in 2009, but is participating this year to make business contacts, said Thomas Livelli, general manager of the Pharma/BioTech Business Unit.

He said Promega is focusing on one of its newer offerings at BIO – Custom Assay Services for pharmaceutical and biotech companies to make their biology workflow productivity more predictable.
 

“Our discovery customers often spend time taking off-the-shelf tools that may not be the best fit for their assay needs and expend resources trying to make them work,” he said.  

 
Livelli said Promega hopes to leave Chicago “with a few scientific meetings in the works between attendees at BIO and our own R&D scientists.”

Louise Bentley of Momentum West said her organization is going to Chicago for its first BIO convention to gain awareness and be seen.

“Our ultimate goal is to attract bio-related industries to our part of Wisconsin,” she said. “If we can make some connections that lead to getting companies to locate here, that would be great.”

G. Steven Burrill, a Wisconsin native and founder of one of the nation’s leading life sciences investment firms, will speak at the “Connecting the Corridors” reception to be held Monday. Among Burrill’s latest projects is the Elk Run BioBusiness Center near Rochester, Minn. 

Still said Gov. Jim Doyle also will attend BIO on Tuesday to meet with key people and hold a news conference.

“One of the things that we – and the governor – will stress is how our investor tax credit law is the best in the nation and that the new Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the private Morgridge Institute for Research on the UW-Madison campus are unlike anything in the Midwest,” he said.

“Only the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and the Clark Center at Stanford are like what we are developing in Madison,” he said. “We think we have something unique for the Heartland with the public research side at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and a focus on commercializing at Morgridge.”