On Monday night, I attended the Biotechnology Institute’s reception and banquet, honoring top science teachers and the high school student finalists in the Sanofi-Aventis International BioGENEius challenge. San Diego’s own Jay Vavra, of High Tech High in Point Loma, won the Genzyme-Invitrogen Biotech Educator Award, being judged as the top biotechnology educator. It is truly amazing what these biotechnology teachers and students are doing these days. Jay and his students are involved in a project sponsored by Invitrogen and San Diego Zoo’s CRES developing methods to barcode African bushmeat, and they are also traveling to Africa to demonstrate the techniques. Teachers are now combining biochemistry, physics, chemistry, and forensics into biotechnology education, creating a truly interdisciplinary and attractive way for our future scientists to learn. The projects from the BioGENEius challenge finalists can be viewed at Upper Level, Ballroom 20 Lobby from 8:30-5:00 today, Wednesday June 18th.

At the banquet, I also met Lisa McDonald from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). She told me about JCVI’s DISCOVER GENOMICS! mobile laboratory, which is a fully functional laboratory on a bus, used to teach kids about the techniques used in biotechnology today. The bus currently serves the metro DC area, and there are plans underway to support another bus that would serve San Diego when the JCVI UCSD facilities are opened. JCVI is committed to teaching young people about science, and the bus is quite impressive.

Overall, it was a very interesting night. I’ll admit that I had gone to network, and didn’t know much about the Biotechnology Institute, but came away with a better appreciation of biotechnology education in the US. With the current cuts in education, notably in California, we need to remember the importance of educating these future scientists who will face ever-increasing challenges in healing, fueling, and feeding the world.

Well, it has been a very busy week in San Diego biotech. We’re all getting ready for the big BIO 2008 conference, and we also got the news that Invitrogen(IVGN) acquired Applied Biosystems (ABI). The deal appears to have “something for everyone,” as Invitrogen CEO Greg Lucier will remain CEO, but the new company will take the ABI name and be headquartered in Carlsbad, just north of San Diego.

How will the companies integrate? The idea seems good on paper (as did the Time/Warner AOL merger), as the products are complementary: IVGN has the consumables that can be used with ABI’s instruments. Lucier has been quoted in saying that the merger will “double the consumables business.” One thing that is glaringly obvious to me, having been through several biotech company integrations, is that the sales forces of the two companies will be vastly different and perhaps difficult to integrate. Although instruments and the consumables used in them seem very straightforward to sell together, it is very difficult to get an instrument sales person, who is accustomed to a longer sales cycle and larger commissions, to sell smaller items. We’ll see how the sales force is structured–there is no reason why the different types of account managers can’t work together.

Lucier has assuaged fears of the return of integration problems that occurred during previous mergers, stating that the IT infrastructure is much more robust now. I believe that, as my casual conversations with IVGN employees seem to reflect that much has been done in integrating six sigma principals into many aspects of operations, likely including IT.

I have always been intrigued at how casually biotech and life sciences companies treat brands, as it appears all Invitrogen products will be re-branded as ABI (although I have no inside information that this will happen). We’ve seen this happen many times (GE Healthcare, Millipore, recently) and normally, Invitrogen has been the great “amalgamator” (Life Technologies, PanVera, Molecular Probes). In other industries, brands are treated very carefully, as it is understood how important brand equity is in attracting and keeping customers. Perhaps in the life sciences, we are all used to constant change by now?

When I first made the leap from academia to marketing in the life sciences, branding was a foreign concept to me, and I had a hard time relating it to biotechnology products. Wikipedia defines branding as “a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service . . . which serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer.” Translation? The best example I can think of is from one of the world’s leading brands, Coca Cola. You see a can of Coke, with its red imagery and logo, and you know what to expect when you pop the top and take a drink. Can you imagine if tomorrow Coke cans came in yellow? Would you expect the same refreshing beverage as you placed the can to your mouth? Probably not, and that’s because you have “associations and expectations” with the Coca Cola branding, which you wouldn’t have with a new labeling of the product.

Why should you care? Branding can be used in a lot of different ways at any sized biotech or life science company. Most consider Invitrogen to be the first company that brought formalized marketing and branding to the life sciences, with a distinct “look and feel,” which was incorporated into their product packaging, newsletters, catalog, and clever, consistent Ads. All of these materials work together to evoke an overall opinion of the company in the mind of the customer. When a scientist opens a kit from a well-branded company, s/he already has an expectation as to how the product will work, and normally this is a good association, otherwise it would not have been purchased.

Large companies normally have a branding style guide which directs them on which colors and fonts to use, layouts for Ads and all communications with customers, and sometimes even a “voice” which describes the style of the verbiage used. These style guides are done by trained branding professionals, and can be expensive for smaller companies. However, smaller companies can take advantage of branding without this large expenditure, by keeping a few key concepts in mind.

Start with a web/graphic designer to design your logo, website, and brochures–there is no shortcut for this, and doing it yourself can be disastrous. While you are at it, have them design some key items that you know you’ll need in the next 6 months, which may include product inserts, fax cover page/letter head, business cards, email blast template, and newsletter. Getting these items now will save you time later, and may also give you a “head start” with other materials you’ll need. I once heard that there are three things that are needed for effective branding: consistency, consistency, and consistency. This rule may be even more important for a small company, as potential customers are looking for clues as to your company’s reliability in all of their communications with you. With some forethought, you can portray a consistent branding message to your customers. When consistency is paired with high quality products, researchers will associate your marketing materials and communications with your products, leading to increased loyalty and purchases. Here are some tips to help you to remain consistent:

1. Consider product packaging and inserts carefully. All should be consistent in content and with the brand.
2. Utilize a consistent font in all of your advertisements, and communications when it is feasible. This should be part of the package that the designers give you.
3. Ask employees to include a company-wide, consistent signature in emails, with all contact information.
4. Make sure the company letterhead and fax coversheet are easily accessible to everyone in the company, and utilized.
5. Make sure that your voicemail system is user friendly and consistent (you can even suggest a greeting for employees).
6. Consider a short training for all employees on the importance of company image and consistency of the brand. You’ll likely find that employees are proud of your products, and are eager to keep the branding consistent, once they understand the importance.

Do you want to learn more about how you can leverage effective branding for increasing market share for your biotech and life sciences products or services? Comprendia can help, contact us to schedule a free one-on-one or web-based presentation, and ask about our Marketing 101™ workshop. This post is part of Comprendia’s Marketing 101 Blog Series, designed to help you grow your business by developing marketing strategies and tactics that work for biotechnology.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for any company, and biotech companies are often very fluid and must keep their sites optimized to reach their target audience. Researchers rely heavily on search engines such as Google to quickly find information and products, and having your site at the top of the list makes them more likely to visit it. There are several tricks of the trade to improving your ranking, including using keywords on your page, simplifying your design by omitting extras like Flash, and cozying up to the search engines by using their web tracking and advertising applications. However, the single most important thing you can do is to add useful content to your site. In other words, make your site a place where your customers would want to come, not just for your products, and they will.

In Biotechnology and the Life Sciences, we are lucky in that there is usually a wealth of scientific research behind the products, so creating content around them simply takes time to put articles together. Consider writing application notes or newsletters that will not only put your products in the context of your customers’ research, but will increase your search engine indexing. Another idea is to include an application that many of your customers will find useful. Do your customers need to make certain calculations repeatedly, or would they benefit from a listing of references on a particular topic? Often, these resources can be integrated into your product listing. Thus, they will not only provide researchers with useful information, but they will be linked to your products and increase your search engine indexing because they will contain words that your customers are already searching for.

Some biotech companies have broken basic SEO rules. A few years ago, several companies got the idea to link their signal transduction products from graphical pathway maps. Thus, researchers searching for anything from “ras protein” to “map kinase” will find these applications and the products related to them. Great idea, but two of the companies used Flash animation for their applications, which are almost invisible to the search engines. Currently, the one company that chose not to do this, EMD Biosciences, still shows up fairly prominently in the search engines, while the others don’t.

Getting your site recognized by search engines is best done by professionals that understand your science, your target audience, and how to implement a strategy that will meet your goals for growing your biotech or life science business. Whether you need to redesign your website completely, or just need the “extra minds” to write engaging content, Comprendia can help. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and Marketing 101™ seminar, which will include hints for optimizing your website today. This post is part of Comprendia’s Marketing 101 Blog Series, designed to help you grow your business by developing marketing strategies and tactics that work for biotechnology.

One of the things I have heard from people in bioscience companies is this: “OK, we’ve got the product developed and ready to launch. Now, we need marketing.” This is a misconception about marketing held by people in different departments at almost any sized company. Marketing does not equal advertising. According to wikipedia, marketing is defined as “the process of creating or directing an organization to be successful in selling a product or service that people not only desire, but are willing to buy.”

In truly market driven companies, marketing comes in at the very beginning of product development, and very little R&D effort is done towards projects that marketing has not been involved with. The “formality” of who does the marketing differs in many companies (and may differ in an individual company at any given time). Product ideas can (and should) come from anywhere, but the key is determining whether there are customers that will buy it.

It is easy to understand how biotechnology companies often find themselves in a situation where marketing is misunderstood. The evolution of a bioscience company, and marketing within it, often happens like this:

1. A scientist or entrepreneur has an idea for a product, or group of products, and decides to form a company. This person is likely someone who could have used this product, and thus s/he knows what potential customers want.
2. The company hires a handful of employees who all “buy into” the proposed product, sometimes relying on scientists who just came from the academic bench (after all, who else would get so excited about stock options?).
3. The product(s) launch and the market responds, and if positively, the company is still afloat!
4. The company gets mired in the details of producing a product, responding to customers, and eventually dealing with competition for the product. The company grows and starts hiring R&D specialists, etc., to grow the product line. Bioscience products are highly technical, so the company is likely still highly technology-driven at this point.
5. The company needs to decide what the next product or product line should be . . . but most of the staff is no longer familiar with the research customers, as they haven’t been one for a few years.

This is a critical point in the growth of a company, where marketing should be brought in to develop new products and ensure that existing products are managed properly. There will likely be tension between R&D and marketing, as a good marketing department will push R&D out of its “comfort zone” to produce innovative products. This is a good thing! The challenge in the bioscience industry is having people in your marketing group that understand the science enough to drive product development. Also, the management must ensure everybody buys into the market-driven model, where time is not spent on products that the marketing group does not approve of. There can be finger pointing and blame, as to whether the problem is with the product itself or the marketing being done for it, but ultimately the marketing group should bear the burden of both driving the process and taking responsibility when sales are down.

How do you use marketing to drive your bioscience business towards continued growth? That’s what we can help you with, both in our Marketing 101™ series and by working with you. Stay tuned, sign up for updates, and contact us for a free consultation and a Marketing 101™ seminar. This post is part of Comprendia’s Marketing 101 Blog Series, designed to help you grow your business by developing marketing strategies and tactics that work for biotechnology.