BayBio Announces Aggressive New Programming for 2008

November 15, 2008 - BayBio, the Northern California life sciences association, has announced its event plans for 2008. Included in the plans are the return of major annual events as well as the addition of three new series and a golf tournament; all of which support innovation in management as well as in science in the world’s largest region for biotechnology and medical technology.

• Link for more information
• Press Release Archive
• BayBio Fact Sheet
• Life Sciences Milestones
• BayBio 2008 Legislative Agenda
• Media Registration

BayBio in the News

In the April 19 Daily Review, Suzanne Bohan reports on the BayBio Annual Conference and the discoveries being made by life sciences companies. "'It's a revolutionary time, really,'" Dr. Donald Francis said. He described the Gates Foundation's focus on developing drugs for infectious diseases that rarely, if ever, appear in the United States, but kill and maim millions worldwide." Dr. Francis joined Dr. Thomas Brewer for the plenary luncheon in front of 500 life sciences colleagues.

"A bill in the state legislature aims to put Silicon Valley biotech companies in the same ballpark as competitor states such as Florida, New York and Illinois," reported the San Jose Business Journal on April 4.

"It's urgent that the bill pass, says Matt Gardner, president of BayBio, a Northern California life sciences trade association that is sponsoring the legislation. Given the slowing economy, he says state officials should be doing everything in their power now to introduce tools to encourage a climate of investment."

Just one week earlier, Northern California laid claim to being "the largest biomedical cluster in the US and at a time when jobs are falling away from the technology giants," US Correspondant John Sterlicchi reported in the March 25 UK Guardian.

"Life sciences...create as many as four jobs in the community for every one created internally. Because they need laboratories, they spend more on real estate and construction and they also spend more on research consumables. BayBio reckons there are now more than 900 biomedical companies in the region and a new one starts up every 10 to 14 days."

Wow, if we can only bring that message back home...

The San Francisco Business Journal's Ron Leuty reported on March 21 on biotech's growing significance as a general employer, highlighting a $1 million charitable donation to build affordable housing in South San Francisco. "'We've always said to communities ... that if you're going to try to attract biotech, you've got to figure out how research parks can match housing,' said Matt Gardner, president of industry trade group BayBio." Genentech donated $1 million to San Mateo County's Housing Endowment and Regional Trust.

"California needs to amend its laws to better support life sciences companies, particularly in their efforts to discover and produce treatments for drug-resistant superbugs," AvidBiotics CEO David Martin and BayBio CEO Matthew M. Gardner wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 18, 2008. Extending the net operating losses carry-forward to 20 years could help drug companies complete the R&D life cycle and potentially profit upon entering the market, the executives say.

"A recent survey by the South San Francisco trade group BayBio and checks by the Mercury News turned up more than 20 companies in and around Silicon Valley that are seeking to snare a share of the diabetes market," reported Steve Johnson in the San Jose Mercury News on March 16, 2008. "The world's aging and pudgy population is fast turning diabetes into a global health crisis, costing this country well over $100 billion annually, by one estimate, and prompting a major push by biomedical companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to combat it."

• Media Articles Archive
• For more information:
  Travis Blaschek-Miller
  650-871-7101x207
  travis@baybio.org.