I wanted to provide a quick post on an interesting report by Mike Huckman at CNBC about the BIO CEO & Investor Conference being held February 8-9, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. The 2 day conference is one of the largest investor conferences focused on publicly traded biotech companies and represents the sector's main lobbying group, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). BIO is the world's largest biotechnology organizations that provides advocacy, business development and communications services for more than 1,200 members worldwide. 26% of the attendees are C-Level executives along with 46% of investors. The event's mission is designed to promote industry wide success. BIO senior executives and key opinion leaders are discussing (among many other topics) current elements of health care reform legislation and its impact on the industry.
Huckman reports much of the attention is given to smaller companies that "often don't get big investment bank attention, their moment in the Sun." Biotech stocks in general have been out performing the languid market and he reports there are a number of events that could propel the sector even higher this year. Apart from the stock market perspective, the sector is still a case of the haves and have nots as there are 100 fewer publicly traded biotech companies today than there were just two years ago. One half of them have been swallowed up by the big players and the other half has gone belly up.
Take a look at the video below as it offers some interesting insights.
