If you’ve been following along with the Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog series, you know that we provide guidance for life science and biotech companies to start and grow. We’re taking this from virtual to IRL (in real life ;) at our October 29th Bootstrapping Biotech event with the San Diego Biotechnology Network. We’ve lined up some excellent speakers who will cover everything from getting funded to strategic and tactical marketing and social media for your company or products. We’ve had a lot of interest so far, even outside of San Diego, and really think that a lot of great, synergistic connections will be made at the event. Even if you don’t work at a small company, we think you’ll be able to learn and meet those who can help you make the most out of your marketing budget. As always, we’re open to feedback as to what you’d like to see–leave a comment here or on the SDBN site.

San Diego TiE (The IndUS Entrepreneurs) Keynote Presentation/Dinner: How Biotechnology Can Fix the Climate Problem, 6:00-9:00 p.m. August 19th, La Jolla Woman’s Club

I attended the Biocom Open House in San Diego last Thursday, and had a great time. The theme was “Southern California Life Science Industry is Larger than Life,” complete with oversized nametags and summer “accessories” and food. I saw some familiar faces and met some new as well. I met someone from Pacira Pharmaceuticals, formerly Skye Pharma, who are actively developing and marketing their group of local anasthetic products. I met Stephen Chang, CSO of Stemgent, a relatively new company in San Diego developing products for stem cell research, an exciting new area. From a marketing standpoint, their website is impressive and “web 2.0,” meaning that it has interactive features such as a forum and a wiki.

I was interested to hear about Avitacor, which runs clinical trials in Mexico, from their co-founder Ciro Garcia. I’m betting this is something we’ll hear a lot more about in the future. I also learned of the UCSD $200K Entrepreneurship Competition from Dany Kitishian, UCSD student and CEO. He was looking to raise funds for the competition’s top award for a startup business plan, which has been increased from $50K to $200K. I also ran into Leo Lee of Pfizer, also the Membership & Communications Chairperson for the San Diego Biotech Discussion Group. They are having a meeting this week, and he indicated that they usually have around 200 in attendance.

Joe Panetta, CEO of Biocom, gave a short speech in which he highlighted the fact that Biocom has a new website, complete with a new Career Center via a partnership with BioSpace. Biocom put on a great event with what I estimate to be about 200 people in attendance. The food was great and I had a good time socializing and getting up to speed on San Diego Biotech.

Association for Corporate Growth, San Diego Summer Social Thursday July 17th 5-9 p.m. La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club

22nd Annual Symposium of the Protein Society July 19-23 San Diego, CA USA