Biotech Showcase™ Partners with Astia to Help Women Biotech Entrepreneurs Successfully Grow Their Businesses

EBD Group and Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors, the producers of Biotech Showcase™, and Astia today announced a strategic collaboration designed to ensure that women-led biotech companies gain the investor and industry relationships needed to successfully grow their businesses. Under this agreement, Astia’s biotech clients participating in the Astia Silicon Valley Doing it Right Program will have the opportunity to present at the second annual Biotech Showcase 2010 held on January 12–13, 2010 at the Marines’ Memorial Club and Hotel, San Francisco, CA.

Astia is a global network of over 700 experts whose goal is to ensure the success of women in high-growth start-ups, primarily in high tech, clean tech and life science sectors. Co-produced by EBD Group and Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors, the Biotech Showcase is a forum providing private and public companies an opportunity to present to an audience of investors and biopharmaceutical business development executives.

“The Biotech Showcase has quickly established itself as a premier venue for companies to present their innovations to potential private and institutional investors and business development teams from pharmaceutical and large biotech firms,” said Sharon Vosmek, CEO, Astia. “Being featured at the Biotech Showcase has the potential to catapult a company several steps forward toward achieving its business goals, and this is why we view it as ‘the forum’ for the Astia companies to be showcased.”

Astia's Silicon Valley Doing it Right program provides unprecedented access to funding, markets and expertise resulting in an exceptional success rate for its clients. Since 2003, greater than 60 per cent of the companies who have presented at the Astia Investor Forums have achieved funding or an exit within one year. During this same period, 12 companies have exited, including two IPS, both in the biotech space.

Chris Meda, president and CEO of Astia supported company, Arcxis Biotechnologies, remarked, “As CEO of a biotech start up and an Astia alumna I am excited about the announcement of the partnership with Biotech Showcase – this will allow Astia entrepreneurs to benefit from the power of the Astia community while ensuring we are being showcased in one of the premier forums for our industry. Astia has always reached out for the best opportunities for its entrepreneurs and this is another illustration.”

“Astia is an organization we are excited to be working with,” said Carola Schropp, President, EBD Group. “By working with exceptional women entrepreneurs as they drive innovation and build successful biotech companies, Astia plays an important role in the long-term success of our bio-economy.”

“I am very excited about this opportunity to work with Astia. Building a successful life science company takes great science, access to capital and, above all, a great management team. We are very impressed with the community that Astia offers up and coming management teams and the fact that advisors are there for the long-term,” said Sara Jane Demy, President of Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors.

About Astia

Astia is a global non-profit organization that provides innovative programs to exceptional women-led start-ups. Head-quartered in San Francisco, Astia delivers programs for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, New York, London and, from 2010, India. Astia is well-positioned to work with start-ups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and develop the leadership of the founding team. The Astia model of engaging a community of experts to the benefit of the select start-ups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate; since 2003, 60% of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or an exit within one year of presenting. For more information: www.astia.org.

About EBD Group

EBD Group is the leading partnering firm for the global life science industry. Since 1993, biotech, pharma and medical device companies have leveraged EBD Group’s partnering conferences, technology and services to identify business opportunities and develop strategic relationships essential to their success. EBD Group’s conferences are run with the support of leading corporations and international trade associations, and include:

• BIO-Europe and BIO-Europe Spring®, Europe’s largest life science partnering conferences, supported by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)
• ChinaBio® Partnering Forum, the first dedicated biotech/pharma partnering conference in China, co-produced with ChinaBio® LLC
• BioPharm America™, the fastest growing partnering event in North America
• Biotech Showcase™, a unique forum in San Francisco for life science companies to present to investors and business development executives, co-produced with Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors
• EuroMedtech™, EBD Group’s partnering event for the innovative medical technology industry
• BioEquity Europe, the investor conference co-organized with BioCentury Publications and BIO

EBD Group’s sophisticated web-based partnering service, partneringONE®, is used as the partnering engine at numerous third-party events around the world. Outside of the conference format, EBD Group’s consultants provide hands-on assistance for firms seeking to in- or out-license products and technologies.

EBD Group has offices in the USA and Europe.

For more information visit www.ebdgroup.com

About Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors

Demy-Colton is a consulting company focused exclusively on facilitating the growth of the life science industry. Sara Jane Demy, the principal of Demy-Colton, is a leader at designing and developing high-value added programs and services to address the business needs of the biotechnology industry. Deep domain knowledge and twenty-years experience will be applied to launching new industry programs and counseling local and regional organizations that wish to increase the level of support and services they provide their biotechnology constituents. Demy-Colton programs include:

• Biotech Showcase™, co-developed with EBD Group, is a unique forum in San Francisco for life science companies to present to investors and business development executives
• The Life Sciences Summit, developed with the Center for Biotechnology is a translational science meeting with collaborations as the objective
• Partnering for Cures developed with FasterCures is the first meeting to bring together medical philanthropists with medical research foundations and the biopharmaceutical industry
• Biocom – CalAsia and Investor Conference (program development)

Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors has also developed Collaborate™, a partnering system suitable for small partnering conferences.