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When President Trump accused Twitter of “shadow banning” Republicans in a tweet on Thursday morning, it was the latest salvo in a long-running …

Public opinion on GMOs is often driven by misinformation and myths, despite scientific consensus that GMOs are safe to eat and nutritionally equivalent to their non-GMO counterparts. While some brands, like Campbell’s and Betty Crocker, have sought to educate consumers about GMOs rather than play into their fears, others are simply spreading confusion.

Many brands tout their products as non-GMO even when their products contain ingredients that couldn’t possibly contain GMOs to begin with.

To help stem the tide of dishonest labeling, GMO Answers developed a series highlighting products commonly labeled as non-GMO despite having no GMO alternatives. Orange juice, yogurt, microwave popcorn, and even pasta makers are all caving to pressure and misinforming the public.

Learn more about how companies are subjugating science and pushing misinformation in the name of “consumer demand” in a new Medium post from GMO Answers.

This fall more than 200 biotech CEOs from 25 different countries will attend the 17^th Annual BIO Investor Forum (BIF) in San Francisco with the specific goal of connecting with partners to make the deals that drive our industry.  The premier event for emerging private and public companies, BIF will likely draw upwards of 300 qualified investors looking to forge long-lasting partnerships with potential to shape the future of healthcare.

Much of the event’s success can be traced to the seasoned group of Advisory Committee members-some of the best and brightest in the industry-who guide the program development by thoroughly evaluating proposed panel sessions, suggesting subject-matter expert speakers, nominating companies to present, and promoting the event to their vast networks.

This year’s list of 27 advisors are actively engaged in the latest breakthroughs of the industry. Half of the group are female reflecting BIO’s mission to promote workforce development, diversity and inclusion. Working with BIO staff, the committee will recruit nearly 200 of the hottest start-ups and emerging companies to give 15-minute presentations (last year’s list of presenters can be found here).  To round out BIF programming, the committee seeks to get the pulse on the latest life science investment trends from sophisticated and active early-stage investment and company executives to develop a dozen candid panel discussions with leading clinical experts and investigators with insights on pipeline research and clinical practice.

The positive investment climate bodes well for this year’s conference. As the biopharma industry has gained traction on new drug approvals through Q2 2018, the financial dollars have followed suit.  According to BioWorld Insight, at this point in 2017 the biotech industry had raised $19.1 billion from public and private offerings.  In 2018, that figure has more than doubled to $39.2 billion.  With 20 new molecular entities (NMEs) approved, the industry in on pace to match last year’s high mark of 46 approvals, a number that hasn’t been seen since 1996 when 53 new medicines were approved.  The transactional value of deals signed in 2018 has also climbed nearly 50 percent higher to $49 billion, compared with the $33 billion from last year.  Oncology, specifically the early-stage pipeline, continues to have a strong presence with biopharma companies with 30 percent of partnerships in Q2 involving cancer-focused developments.

Partnerships remain a vital option for companies looking to mitigate risk with small up-front payments and profitable downstream successes due to the volatility of the current administration and the subsequent financial climate.  However, while the value of biopharma deals has climbed sharply through Q2 2018, the volume of deals is down almost 10 percent (615 in 2017; 554 in 2018).  This means that while more financial capital is flowing into the biopharma industry, it is being spread over fewer clinical indications, making it even more imperative for investors to find the right corporate partners for deal success.  This is where the BIO Investor Forum comes in.

BIO meticulously reviews the qualifications of each company and investor to ensure high-quality interactions during the two-day event. These reviews, for example on the investor-side, begin with the foundation of a comprehensive investor policy that involves assessing the organization type, position title, value of assets under management in the industry, and even specific deals within their respective life science portfolios.  This year’s event will attract investors from over 50 funds with more than $1B assets under management; over 120 funds specializing in Angel/Series A placements; and over 20 funds from outside the U.S. While a complete 2018 list is not available yet, this 2017 list is an indication of the exceptional talent participating in the event.

Attendees can take advantage of BIO’s One-on-One Partnering™ system to connect to the right people at the event. It schedules meetings that might otherwise take weeks to arrange. Last year 2,760 individual meetings were held over two days.  Participants can search company and investor profiles, evaluate potential collaborations and funding opportunities with participating companies, communicate directly with prospective investors and senior business and scientific management, and pre-schedule private business development meetings.

Ultimately, all this tireless effort for a unique event is designed to accelerate growth within the biopharma industry, catering to entities early in their lifecycle and stakeholders looking to support them and get more innovative treatments to helping patients sooner. Qualified investors attend for free.

Demi Lovato’s overdose came at the end of a party at her home that lasted all night, but when EMTs and police arrived to help her … the partygoers were nowhere in sight … law enforcement sources tell TMZ. Our sources say when first responders arrived…

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Writing last week for Morning Consult, BIO President and CEO Jim Greenwood proposed several policy ideas for Washington lawmakers to consider as they look to further reform America’s tax code.

Our nation’s life sciences industry is thriving but other countries are adopting policies designed to attract biotechnology firms to their shores, and as a result, the U.S. is losing some of its competitive advantage. In fact, as shown in a recent report commissioned by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, American innovation has slowed in recent years as other countries have developed policies to encourage innovation abroad.

“Foreign nations are competing aggressively to attract more life sciences investment, including through tax incentives such as “patent boxes” (which tax patent revenues more favorably than other sources of commercial revenue), regulatory reforms to speed up drug approvals, and workforce and immigration policies designed to attract and educate top talent in the life sciences field,” Greenwood warns.

Luckily, the ball is in our court. With Congress signaling that another round of changes to the tax code is in the works, adopting relatively simple changes can help cement U.S. leadership in the biosciences for generations to come.  Here’s a sample of what BIO recommends:

• Reforming Section 382 of the tax code to help small biotechs further invest in the growth of their companies;
• Simplifying Section 1202 of the tax code to encourage investment in innovative breakthroughs; and
• Enabling more innovative startups to benefit from the payroll R&D credit in Section 41 of the Tax Code.

Read the full op-ed in Morning Consult here, and check out BIO’s recent letter to tax writers in the U.S. House of Representatives for a deeper dive on this important issue.

There’s a huge opportunity to improve agriculture with gene editing. But we need to give CRISPR a chance, writes Tamar Haspel in Vox.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine last week released a report on how to address the most pressing problems of American agriculture. The list of those problems is long and scary: climate change, food waste, water scarcity, food-borne illness, pests, and disease.

The report identifies five scientific tools to improve sustainability and resilience, and four of them are pretty uncontroversial: understanding soil microbes, deploying sensors, integrating systems, and managing data. The fifth is gene editing. If the past is a predictor, that one will raise hackles. Nothing in agriculture is as divisive as a modified genome.

But does the past have to be a predictor? Is it possible that new gene editing techniques like CRISPR – along with new applications, new players, and a new way of talking with the public – give science the chance to press the reset button on genetic modification?

We can argue about the impact of the genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, already in our system, modified to be toxic to insects, resistant to herbicides, or both. It’s been a mixed bag, with decreases in insecticide and our most toxic herbicides on the plus side, and an increase in herbicide-tolerant weeds on the minus side.

But the argument against GMOs has never been just about the GMOs themselves. It is about a corporate-dominated, industrialized food system that’s focused on animal feed, processed foods, and biofuels and insufficiently attentive to soil health, environmental degradation, and biodiversity. GMOs have been a convenient handhold on a big, slippery problem. Enter CRISPR, a powerful new gene editing tool that’s everything GMOs aren’t.

Haspel explains: “For one, CRISPR is academic where GMO is corporate…It’s also transparent where GMO is opaque…It’s cheap where GMO is expensive…It’s accessible where GMO is proprietary.”

CRISPR may not win minds and hearts overnight, and we still have much to study and learn about it. But here’s hoping that transparency, community involvement, and applications in the public interest will bring gene editing skeptics to the table – disbelief at least temporarily suspended – to give it a chance.

Anyone can replace a toilet. Just watch this video’s instructions!

Each year, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) holds their annual meeting and expo.  Since 1939, IFT has been bringing the most creative minds in the science of food and technology together to collaborate, learn, and contribute, all with the goal of inspiring and transforming collective scientific knowledge into innovative solutions for the benefit of all people around the world. IFT’s annual event and Food Expo is an excellent way to be one of the first to see some of the latest advancements and innovations in the science of food. Leading researchers and industry representatives come to IFT’s annual event to share their discoveries and soon to be released products. This year, more than 23,000 attendees were in Chicago to take in the educational sessions, networking opportunities, and walk the exhibit hall.

GMO Answers was there to talk to meeting attendees, including food scientists, buyers, food company executives, and students about GMOs. We also attended several sessions, including “The Clash Between Consumer Demands and Responsible Food” and “Embracing Agricultural Coexistence: Organic, Conventional, and Biotechnology.”

GMO Answers volunteer expert and farmer Katie Pratt held a Facebook Live chat during the show to talk about her three top takeaways:

1. Food scientists overwhelmingly support GMO technologies and are looking for tools to be able to talk to the public about them.
2. There is a disconnect between food scientists, nutritionists, dietitians on the R&D side of food companies and the marketing side, who are much more driven by trends and perceived consumer demand.
3. Ultimately, farmers, scientists, and food companies all want the same thing: to provide healthy, safe, and affordable food to all.

Check out Katie’s Facebook Live to learn more about our experience at #IFT18.

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The last day of the 2018 BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology wrapped up Thursday, July 19, with a half-day of programming and partnering, packed with breakout sessions, company and technical presentations, a lunch plenary and the announcement of the third annual Leadership and Legacy Award in Industrial Biotechnology and Agriculture recipient.

The BIO World Congress continues to be the largest industrial biotechnology conference in the world, and this year’s event included 44 percent attendance from outside the United States. In addition, more than 100 companies descended on Philadelphia for the event.

Leadership and Legacy Award in Industrial Biotechnology and Agriculture

Dr. Larry Walker, co-editor and chief of the journal “Industrial Biotechnology,” was honored as the recipient of the Leadership and Legacy Award during the lunch plenary session. The award is presented to an individual who has shown exemplary leadership and who has dedicated a significant portion of their career to advancing industrial biotechnology and growing the biobased economy.

In accepting the award, Dr. Walker reflected on his time as an academic, studying and working closely with several American universities and noted the industry’s influence on his success.

“You folks have had a big impact on how I think about innovation, probably more so than my academic colleagues, probably because you’re out there doing it,” said Dr. Walker to the crowd. “It’s the people here that has had a major impact.”

Industrial Biotechnology Innovation for Ag Feedstock Production Applications Plenary

Following the award presentation, attendees heard from a collection of experts during the “Industrial Biotechnology Innovation for Ag Feedstock Production Applications” plenary session.

During the plenary, each panelist discussed their company’s innovations and efforts in industrial biotechnology. The panel included representatives from agricultural and environment companies as well as Jenny Rooke with Genoa Ventures, a company that invests in early-stage companies innovating at the intersection of biology and technology.

Rooke summed up the conference best when noting “It’s a really exciting time to be working in industrial biotechnology.”

Breakout Sessions, Company and Technical Presentations, Raffles and more

And even though Thursday was technically a half-day, programming was not lacking. Attendees continued to take in breakout sessions and company and technical presentations.

From discussions about the overall biobased economy, to microbial solutions to advance agriculture sustainability, to renewable chemicals and synthetic biology, Thursday’s breakout sessions again included something for anyone working in industrial biotechnology.

During company and technical presentations, Andy Renz of Vestaron presented on his company’s peptide-based biopesticides. Comparing his company’s technology to current synthetic and microbial forms, Renz noted that Vestaron’s biopesticide is scalable, efficient, low-cost and safe, and be an alternative to chemical insecticides, which has faced significant market challenges.

And as part of the last day of the BIO World Congress, Chris Smith of Gevo, Inc. was announced as the winner of the Feedback Raffle and went home with a new Fitbit.

Overall, there were over 70 programming sessions, including 28 breakout sessions across seven tracks, more than 20 poster presentations, 10 GreenTech Investor Sessions and four sponsored workshops. Additionally, there were 60 company and technical presentations, with many presentations standing room only.

BIO looks forward to seeing this year’s attendees at the 2019 BIO World Congress in Des Moines, Iowa, July 8-11, 2019. For more information, visit http://www.bio.org/worldcongress/IOWA19.