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According to a new report published by Reports Monitor titled, “Global Biotechnology Medicine Market, Growth Opportunities, Innovations and …

“…we not only received important and relevant feedback about our presentation and technologies, we also received solicitations from angel investors…”

The success of the Start-up Stadium, now in its fourth year at the BIO International Convention, is reflected in the increased demand for participation and the number of finalists approved to participate. Designed to provide a forum for a select group of early stage biotech companies-vetted and approved by subject matter experts-to engage with key stakeholders at the beginning of their life-cycle, the popular venue has grown from 30 to 50 participants. There will be a total of six sessions over the four days of the conference and each session will have a winner.

Participants from nine countries and 15 states will engage in an interactive experience before seasoned judges from investment, venture philanthropy, economic development, academia and industry sectors.

Early stage biotech companies face many uphill challenges, not the least of which is where to find the right partners to help turn their promising technology into viable, commercial products. Several years ago, BIO created the Start-up Stadium at the BIO International Convention-the largest annual global gathering of biotechnology professionals.

Much like a reality TV show competition, the event creates a dynamic interplay between the contestants and judges. After delivering a six-minute pitch, the early-stage company receives feedback in real time from hand-picked judges and often continues the relationship beyond the initial meeting at the Convention. In the end, six winners are chosen from among the more than 40 finalists. Most of the start-ups find the experience to be beneficial and a few have agreed to share their stories with us.

This is the third in a series of blogs that highlight Start-up Stadium success stories.

Craig Arnold, President and CEO of Nanopareil LLC

Today we talked with 2017 participant, Craig Arnold, President and CEO of Nanopareil LLC about his Start-up Stadium experience.

BIOtechNOW (BTN): Can you tell us about your start-up?

Nanopareil LLC is a South Dakota based start-up that produces nanofiber membranes for membrane chromatography and other bioseparation/purifications.  The company was founded by two professors, Drs. Todd Menkhaus and Hao Fong on the South Dakota School of Mines Campus.

BTN: Was the Start-Up Stadium platform able to assist you in gaining visibility?

Start-up Stadium proved to be a great venue to introduce our membrane technology to the bio industry for the first time. Immediately following our presentation, we not only received important and relevant feedback about our presentation and technologies, we also received solicitations from angel investors.

BTN: Did you receive constructive live feedback at the Start-Up Stadium from stakeholders and subject matter experts?

The constructive feedback that we received after our Start-up Stadium presentation provided us with immediate reaction and feedback from the subject matter experts that we could not get anywhere else.  Their feedback helped us hone in on our technical presentation as well as our features and benefits.

BTN: How have you implemented any feedback to achieve success and continued growth?

Absolutely, we walked off the stage and immediately began to integrate the feedback we received into our presentation that we used in our One-on-One Partnering meetings. 

BTN: Were your BIO One-on-One Partnering™ meetings successful? Did they generate valuable connections with potential for meaningful partnerships?

Our credibility shot up with our Start-up Stadium presentation and was significantly enhanced with our 1^st place win of Buzz of Bio. Our unknown South Dakota start-up was able to secure more than 20 meetings with top tier biopharma and bioprocessing technology companies from around the world.  The valuable connections we made within the industry began at BIO 2017 and continue to this day.  We continue to have on-going discussions, evaluations and negotiations with multiple companies that understand that membrane chromatography a key component to low-cost, small footprint, highly efficient analysis and bioproduction.

BTN: Although no longer eligible to participate in the Start-Up Stadium, will you be returning the 2018 BIO International Convention in Boston?

The good news is that BIO 2017 was very successful for us and we are well on our way to the commercialization of our membrane chromatography products. As much as we would like to participate in BIO 2018, we are all hands on deck trying to keep up with all of our engagements and business development activities as well as the production of our membranes.  Please save a spot for us in BIO 2019!

You can make just about anything from concrete. Including this coaster!

On June 4^th, thousands of individuals from across the globe will head to Boston – but not for a Red Sox game or a world-famous lobster roll – they’ll be in town for the 2018 BIO International Convention.

It’s not just the packed agenda that will draw nearly 17,000 to attend in Boston this June, it’s BIO One-on-One Partnering™ that helps make Convention the “can’t miss” global event for the biotechnology industry year after year. As BIO continues to celebrate its 25^th anniversary over the course of 2018 by looking back at the many important milestones that have been achieved over the years, we look forward to adding another notch to the belt in an official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ attempt while in Boston – the record for the “Largest Business Partnering Meeting” – which is made possible through our industry-leading technology.

BIO One-on-One Partnering™ allows users to efficiently identify potential partners, craft compelling company profiles showcasing their company’s offerings, and communicate with senior business development executives and investors at the touch of a button. In fact, this state-of-the-art platform has proven to be the most efficient way to do business in the biotech and pharma industry without traveling all over the world.

Don’t believe us? Let’s take a look at the numbers:

• BIO’s One-on-One Partnering™ system will facilitate nearly 1,300 partnering meetings per hour during 2018 Convention;
• In 2017, more than 41,400 partnering meetings took place – that’s up 16 percent from 2016 – and BIO anticipates that this number will exceed 45,000 in June;
• 3,500 organizations from nearly 75 countries participated in One-on-One Partnering™ last year; and
• Since 2015, scheduled partnering meetings at Convention have increased by over 40% and the steady growth is expected to continue at this year’s event.

Be a part of history and join us, June 4-7. Attendees can look forward to a keynote address from Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, and dozens of fireside chats and breakout sessions with global biotech and pharma leaders who will discuss everything from innovation to the latest trends and topics being debated on Capitol Hill.

To learn more about the event and available registration packages, please visit convention.bio.org/register.

For decades now, climate change activists have used the scientific evidence of global warming to justify their efforts to increase environmental protections and overall awareness about mankind’s role in heating the earth. And rightfully so. After all, the theories around man’s impact on the environment have been rigorously tested through the scientific method – the gold standard by which scientists hypothesize and test scientific theory.

Through the scientific method we also know that gravity keeps us grounded and the sun does NOT revolve around the earth – principles that are widely accepted and even taught in schools. And through the scientific method, we also know that foods containing genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) are safe.

Therefore, if you’re anti-GMO you’re ignoring the scientific method, and thus discrediting the widely accepted principles that are derived from it. Or, as global health columnist Michael Gerson writes in a piece for the Washington Post, to be anti-GMO is to be anti-science:

In keeping with our era of ideological boycotts, I will no longer be purchasing Kind bars. Or Barilla pasta. Or Triscuit crackers. Or Del Monte diced tomatoes. Or Nutro dog food.

A one-person boycott, of course, is really just a change in your shopping list. But the companies that produce these brands are guilty of crimes against rationality. All advertise on their packaging, in one way or another, that they don’t contain GMOs – genetically modified organisms. Walking down the aisle of my supermarket, I could have picked many other examples. Some food companies seem to be saying that GMO ingredients are not even fit for your dog.

My boycott is rooted in the fact that there is no reputable scientific evidence that direct genetic modification – instead of slower genetic modification through selective breeding – has any health effects of any kind. None. Here is a 2016 analysis of about 1,000 studies by the National Academy of Sciences: “The committee concluded that no differences have been found that implicate a higher risk to human health safety from these [Genetically Engineered] foods than from their non-GE counterparts.” The NAS was joined in this judgment by the Royal Society, the French Academy of Science and the American Medical Association.

So why has Europe essentially banned GMOs? Why do many American food companies treat them like toxins?

Mark Lynas’s new book, “Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOs,” tells the story from a unique perspective. Lynas was an early anti-GMO activist in Britain – participating in everything from late-night crop destruction to delivering a pie in the face of Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg. The logic of Lynas’s conversion is an implicit challenge to both the American right and the left. In an earlier book, “Six Degrees,” Lynas took a deep dive into climate science (winning the Royal Society’s 2008 Science Book Prize in the process). He found the scientific consensus on climate change to be compelling. But he found the evidence for the safety of GMOs to be at least as strong. “I couldn’t deny the scientific consensus on GMOs,” he writes, “while insisting on strict adherence to the one on climate change, and still call myself a science writer.”

It was, he says, “a decisive turning point in my life.” But the public debate on GMOs turned in exactly the opposite direction. Just as scientists were becoming more confident in the safety of GMOs, global anti-GMO activists, led by Greenpeace, were making the issue a hot potato (including a genetically modified insect-resistant potato cultivated in Canada). On the strength of myths (that using genetically modified seeds somehow resulted in suicides among Indian farmers) and deception (tying GMOs to autism or cancer), supermarket chains, food companies and eventually governments were frightened into anti-GMO stances. In the developing world, anti-GMO activists spread rumors that GMO consumption resulted in homosexuality and infertility.

Lynas has carefully avoided writing a screed. He shows considerable patience for the worldview of his former allies: a preference for the small and natural, a fear that agricultural technology results in centralization and increased corporate power.

I have less patience. There is more than a hint of cultural imperialism when Westerners – grown fat on the success of modern farming – lecture subsistence farmers on the benefits of heirloom breeds and organic methods. The greatest need among farmers who spend part of the year hungry is increased productivity. Plant varieties engineered to resist cassava brown streak, banana bacterial wilt or maize lethal necrosis can be a matter of life or death. New, drought-resistant crops will be essential as the climate continues to change. And crops designed to resist insects require the use of far less insecticide – which reduces the risk of pesticide poisoning.

As with the anti-vaccination movement, a contempt for science can have a human cost. The risks are very real when societies become detached from reality.

The anti-GMO movement is best described as a religious belief. Such beliefs have their uses. Theology can determine the values we bring to the world, but it can’t be allowed to dictate our facts. The anti-GMO packaging of Triscuits has the same factual basis as the claim: “No plants or animals produced by evolution were used in the production of this product.” It is the victory of anti-reason. As close as your nearest supermarket.

On left and right, our theologies need to be tethered to empiricism. Our deepest beliefs should help navigate reality, not determine it.

Meanwhile, my dog and I will be shopping in the non-irrationality section.

Writing for the National Review, Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute authors a stark warning about the dangers associated with importing drugs from Canada. As Pipes explains:

“[P]atients risk their lives every time they fill prescriptions through online pharmacies that claim to be based in Canada. The risk is even greater now that counterfeiters are lacing many pills with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. Last July, law enforcement in Alberta seized 130,000 counterfeit pills that contained fentanyl.”

This warning comes in the wake of a recent decision by a U.S. district court in Montana who imposed a $34 million fine on Canada Drugs – an online pharmacy charged with selling counterfeit medications to Americans who were simply unaware of the potential trouble ahead.

Policymakers in Washington are working hard to ensure individuals and families have access to affordable medicines, but allowing these treatments to be imported from abroad is an ill-advised solution that poses significant safety risks.

“Lawmakers in nine states have recently considered bills that would permit American patients or pharmacies to import huge quantities of drugs from Canada. Congressional Democrats, led by Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), are also pushing hard for importation. … If they succeed, the influx of counterfeit drugs could precipitate a public-health catastrophe. Widespread importation would also stifle research and development of legitimate new drugs.”

As BIO has pointed out before, while the Canadian government works to ensure the safety and authenticity of medicines entering their market that are intended for use by patients in Canada, they do not apply those standards for medicines intended for export only.

“Passing legislation to encourage drug importation would expose more Americans to harmful counterfeits,” Pipes continues. “Such laws would also discourage pharmaceutical research and development.”

Read the full op-ed here.

This year, Cinco de Mayo fell on a Saturday, when the “Today’s Homeowner” staff is not in the office, so on Friday we threw a “Cuatro de Mayo” party!

Law360 (May 4, 2018, 9:14 PM EDT) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the former president of biotechnology company Sanomedics International Holdings Inc. in Florida federal court on Friday for allegedly using an undisclosed boiler room of sales agents to fraudulently solicit …

Consumers are clamoring for honest, accurate information about their food.  And GMOs in food products have become a hot topic in the past few years.  Many people are now wanting to know if there are GMOs in their food, and want accurate information from food companies about this issue.

But accurate information cuts both ways.  In a new op ed in the Houston Chronicle on behalf of GMO Answers, Registered Dietitian Neva Cochran notes that Amazon, which has recently bought Whole Foods, needs to be more honest and clear in their marketing of their foods.

She writes:

Consumers are so bombarded with food and nutrition hype on the internet that they are confused about the safety, healthfulness and nutritional contributions of many foods and ingredients. With a plethora of absence claims on food labels and shelf tags – gluten-free, non-GMO, sugar-free, no added hormones, no artificial ingredients, antibiotic-free – fear-based marketing seems to have become the preferred way to sell a product.

She lists many of the common misleading claims found on products in U.S. grocery stores, including chicken labelled with no added hormones (No chicken sold in the U.S. is allowed to have added hormones) or gluten-free labels on products that no one would ever think to contain gluten (Assuming people actually know what gluten is).

Finally, she addresses the hot trend of slapping the phrase “non-GMO” on items, or what we call spreading misinformation about GMOs:

Finally, there are non-GMO claims, which imply that foods produced through GMO agriculture are not safe or healthful. The fact is GMO foods are perfectly safe to eat. The 2016 National Academy of Sciences report, “Genetically Modified Crops,” examined over 1,000 research and other publications and concluded there was no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between commercially available GMO and conventional crops.

There are only 10 approved GMO crops currently in the United States: field and sweet corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, alfalfa, sugar beets, papaya, squash, potatoes and apples But you will find non-GMO labels on items ranging from salt, vodka and orange juice to cat litter.

In the end, people just want to know if their food is healthy, safe, and nutritious for them and their families to eat.  Misleading marketing labels do nothing to help consumers make those decisions, and companies should stop doing it.

Check out Neva’s op ed in the Houston Chronicle, and then head to GMO Answers for more information about GMOs.

This week, Dr. Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center authored an op-ed about the cost of prescription medicines within state Medicaid programs. The opinion piece fails to mention several key points that patients and policymakers deserve to know. In response, BIO Communications submitted the following comments:

There are few important points Dr. Bach either glosses over or fails to mention entirely.

First, drugmakers are required by law to provide significant rebates to state Medicaid programs to help provide access to innovative medicines. These rebates reduce the list prices for innovative drugs by at least 23.1 percent. Then there is the “best price” rule, which requires drugmakers to provide Medicaid the lowest price offered to any other entity in the marketplace. Medicaid is entitled to whichever concession – the 23.1% rebate or “best price” – leads to the best possible deal for taxpayers.

States may then demand supplemental rebates in addition to these federal requirements, all of which help provide low-income patients access to innovative medicines at a lower cost to taxpayers. To leave the impression that Medicaid might pay the full price for a prescription medicine is grossly misleading.

Second, ICER has a habit of relying on hypothetical assumptions derived from a non-transparent system to promote their preconceived notions about the value of innovative biopharmaceutical medicines. No one knows for certain what assumptions ICER bases its reviews on, because much of its work remains shrouded in secrecy.

Also, more often than not, ICER’s views stand in stark contrast to those of physicians and patients who understand the true value of biomedical innovation. That was the case during last week’s hearing in New York, which this column also fails to mention. Instead of holding up ICER’s black-box approach as the gospel, we should all view its work with a great deal of skepticism.