BIO-Europe 2001 Sets Attendance Record

November 16, 2001 (Washington, D.C.) - This week’s 7th Annual BIO-Europe partnering conference set a new record for attendance, drawing more than 1,000 executives and investors to Munich.

“The combination of high-quality biotechnology companies and high-level pharmaceutical executives helped make this one of our most successful partnering conferences ever,” said Morrie Ruffin, BIO’s vice president for business development and emerging companies.

During the three-day event, representatives from 450 companies scheduled more than 1,500 private partnering meetings, and 135 biotechnology companies gave formal presentations. BIO’s partners in staging the conference were E.B.D. Group and Ernst & Young. Sponsors included pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as leading investment banks and venture capital firms such as 3i, Apax Partners, Breslin Biotech, Dresdner Kleinwort Capital, Ferghana Partners and TVM (Techno Venture Management). A two-day conference in Copenhagen, BIO-Scandinavia 2001, followed BIO-Europe and ends today.

BIO’s next European partnering event is BioSquare 2002, slated for Feb. 27 - March 1 in Zurich. For information on this conference, or on the BIO CEO and Investors Conference 2002, slated for Feb. 20 - 22 in New York, please visit BIO’s Web site, www.bio.org.

BIO represents more than 1,000 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations in all 50 U.S. states and 33 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of health-care, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products.