DNAprint Genomics (DNAG)

[IVRT]

The 8th BioPartnering Europe Conference in London Proves That The Biotechnology Industry Is Definitely on the Up

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2000 12:19:00 PM EST
LONDON, Oct 18, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The 8th BioPartnering Europe conference, which took place in London on 16-17 October 2000, attracted a record number of delegates and exhibiting companies this year, with the conference mood reflecting the increasing excitement within the industry.

Monday afternoon saw keynote presentations and a panel session focused on the growth and financing trends within the industry, which concluded that the year 2000 has seen a massive upturn in the sentiment towards the biotech sector. The first quarter of 2000 alone has seen more money raised than in the whole of 1999. So far, $6 billion has been raised this year to finance biotech firms, compared to $0.9 billion in 1999.

Rodney Young, Managing Director and Head of the European Healthcare Investment Banking group at SG Cowan, believes that this has been partly due to the increased demand placed on the industry to deliver on the successful sequencing of the human genome earlier this year, and also due to dotcom companies losing their appeal with investors.

Nick Low****, Managing Director at E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. International, supported this notion and added that the industry is "in a much healthier shape" than a year ago.

The Monday morning session involved a panel session where three speakers from biotechnology companies discussed a new paradigm based on the integration of diverse information technology (IT) resources with the life science R&D, and how the resulting increase in information is being managed using databases, processes, systems and desktop applications. The session concluded that the current drug discovery and development processes are driven by new generation high technologies such as bioinformatics, and that older approaches, classically used in front line drug development, are now used as a secondary measure to confirm results predicted using the more modern technologies.

The positive sentiment within the industry has been supported by the positive announcements made during the day by leading biotechnology companies from around the world:

-- `Oxford BioMedica obtains approval for TroVax(TM) to enter trials for
colorectal cancer'
-- `Prolifix appoints clinical advisory board as key cancer compounds
progress towards clinical development'
-- `New NMR-based technology to shorten drug discovery chemistry from
years to weeks'
-- `Neurotech S.A. builds powerful patent portfolio covering cell therapy
and protein delivery'
-- `D-Pharm completes Phase I of its DP-b99 testing'
-- `D-Pharm receives technology patent'

SOURCE BioPartnering Europe Conference

CONTACT: Media, Nikul Odedra, Senior Account Manager,
[e-mail], or Caroline Stupnicka, Account Executive,
[e-mail], both of HCC De Facto, [phone]; or
Delegates, Nancy Connelly of Technology Vision Group LLC, 831-464-7100,
[e-mail]
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