In This Issue Return to LES Home 10 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Spring Meeting President's Message: The Importance of Interdependence Foundation Focus Secrets to Success CLP Test Development LES Education We’ve Got Updates! Sector Spotlight: Health Care Sector The JP Morgan Health Care Conference Chemicals, Energy & Materials Sector Mini-Plenary Covers Diverse CEMC Interests Nine Tips for Entrepreneurs: How Entrepreneurs Can Partner with General Mills Orlando Program Takes Shape Local Chapters Research Triangle Park Atlanta Florida Enthusiastic Response To Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) Program LES Calendar of Events		Sector Spotlight Activities, News and Trends Healthcare Sector This is the sixth in a series of brief articles written by guest authors in the health care licensing area on current topics of high importance and interest to our licensing executives. Ruth Plager is President, ZenithBIO LLC, a boutique, strategic business development consultancy, with a proven track record assisting in the growth of emerging biopharmaceutical companies. We hope you enjoy the article! - Your LES Health Care Committee The Giant Of All Financial Health Care Conferences: The JP Morgan Health Care Conference By Ruth Plager The crush in the hallways of the San Francisco St. Francis Hotel, January 7-10, 2008 at the 26th Annual JP Morgan Health Care Conference is but the tip of the iceberg. Officially, JP Morgan reports 7,462 attendees for the four-day program including presentations by 338 companies, 283 public and 55 private. The timing of the annual JP Morgan Health Care conference which kicks off the New Year couldn't be better. Everyone is refreshed after the holidays, the San Francisco location coupled with a time slot that isn't competing with any of the other major medical, financial, and business development partnering conferences maximizes attendance, which includes international representation. All San Francisco hotels and restaurants are packed—with health care networking and dealmaking happening everywhere. The buzz in the conference hallways and in suites all around town focus on deals, deals, more deals, and financing… in every imaginable configuration. For public companies, or private companies in financing mode, the number of attendees per company range from three to eight—depending on what's needed for coverage of all the pre-scheduled meetings and depending upon the JP Morgan allotment per company. Even the major companies are given a quota of attendees by JP Morgan. The actual attendance far exceeds the official numbers reported by JP Morgan. As many comment, this is the only financial conference that all the other bankers also attend! Most of the large pharma and biotech companies, as well as VC's, bankers, and law firms with large health care practices have suites in the hotels, with back-to-back off-site meetings scheduled throughout the conference. And many of the companies also host private evening receptions. How frequently I heard colleagues comment: I am officially registered but will probably never be able to get over to the actual conference, given all the meetings I have pre-scheduled. Others report 75% of their time in pre-scheduled off-site meetings, and the other 25% in random encounters at the convention itself, or the many hospitality suites and receptions sponsored by major attendees. And that is the name-of-the game—the conference has gotten so large that you can't count on running into all the people whom you want to meet with…so you schedule meetings and meeting locations well before you arrive. For those who never get to the conference, it's common to have well over 20 meetings scheduled, and for some companies it's far more. Networking related to potential deals and actual deals are the dominant theme of most meetings. And for others who couldn't nab an official entry badge, just hanging out in the lobby of the St. Francis guarantees valuable networking and an opportunity for random encounters with many colleagues whom you haven't seen in some time. Many business development/ licensing executives report that the JP Morgan Health Care Conference is the only financial conference they attend—the other conferences on their "always" list are the Bio Conferences and the Annual LES Conference. Other premier banking health care conferences mentioned include-UBS, Merrill Lynch, Alex Brown, and Cowen, as well as major business development conferences. All in all, the JP Morgan Health Care Conference remains at the top of the list; and although it's well recognized that the conference has outgrown the facilities of the St. Francis, no one wants to break the traditional venue. So see you again the first full week in January 2009 at the 27th Annual JP Morgan Health Care Conference for the beginning of another fabulous year of deals and financing. Chemicals, Energy and Materials Sector Mini-Plenary Covers Diverse CEMC Interests By Les Goff The CEMC Sector will again feature a fantastic speaker line-up. These experts will focus on the changing landscape of chemicals, energy and materials at the upcoming Annual International LESI Conference in Chicago, May 4-7, 2008. The presentations will address the leading current and changing practices and opportunities in the realm of energy/environmental licensing. Some of the highlights of these upcoming presentations include: The global petrochemical business is experiencing significant changes which create significant technology licensing opportunities. Demand for chemicals to incorporate into valuable products that facilitate significant economic growth and improve living conditions everywhere is growing much faster than the world GDP petrochemicals. This high growth reflects continued penetration of chemicals and plastics into both existing and new uses. In turn, North America will shift from a net exporter of chemicals to a net importer by 2015. And, over the next 10 years, about 60% of the world's petrochemical growth will occur in Asia, and China may account for 25 percent of global demand. Critical to meeting future demand is innovation rooted in leading-edge technologies. Innovation continues to provide solutions to emerging needs in transportation, packaging, construction, and health care. This is "Shift in Petrochemical Business Model and the New Prospect for New Licensing Opportunity" Workshop 1-C. Given the growing worldwide concerns about global warming and the necessity to reduce CO2, auto makers and component manufacturers are increasingly challenged to find environmentally friendly and energy efficient green technologies (e.g., advanced catalytic technologies) to replace less efficient existing practices. We will discuss the evolving licensing landscape between the two parties to implement green technologies in order to cope with such global concerns. This is "Licensing Policy on Green Technologies in Automotive Industries" Workshop 3-C. Examination of emerging choices and evolving licensing marketplace for fossil fuel alternatives, including the challenges and tensions in developing, commercialization and widespread adoption of biofuels and fuel cells. Speakers will be from different geographic organizations and regions worldwide, including start-ups, government, universities and energy companies. This mini-plenary will focus first on various new technologies being developed including an important concept by DOE (i.e., FutureGen), the licensing models being used by leading non-profits, and financing perspectives; the second portion will focus on hydrogen and fuel cells. FutureGen was an initiative to build the world's first integrated sequestration and hydrogen production research power plant. The $1.5 billion project had been intended to create the world's first zeroemissions fossil fuel plant. If it had become operational, the prototype would have been the cleanest fossil fuel fired power plant in the world. While it was approved technically, DOE elected not to fund it. This is "Choices, Choices and More Choices for Fuels of the Future" Mini-Plenary 1-C. We will also host a session on interpretation of sale as public prior use of novel chemical compositions. Speakers from several jurisdictions, including Europe, Australia, Asia, U.S. and Japan, will present the current practice, problems and suggestions for overcoming the sale as public prior use interpretation problems or improving the system. Discussion will also include the distinction between patent protection and trade secrets protection and the possible impact on the conditions in licensing agreement involving patent or know-how relating to such composition. This is "Novelty of Chemical Compositions—Interpretation of Sale as Public Prior Use" Workshop 1-B. CEMC Sector Survey We continue to survey our members, and our most recent survey of CEMC members was conducted to determine the level of interest in a broad range of topics. The survey was distributed to all CEMC members and received an excellent response. Respondents were asked to rate their level of interest on each topic on a 4-point Likert scale including "Very Interested," "Somewhat Interested," "Slightly Interested" and "Not Interested." Highlights can be seen in the chart below. We will continue to provide feedback to our sector members based on survey results and look forward to further discussions to better determine the needs of our members.
Copyright© 2008 Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. and Canada), Inc.