CEO Letters

September 2021

Members and Friends,

Join us this Thursday September 30 for Women Building Bio 2021!

Register NOW for Women Building Bio 2021!  With the theme “Investing in Ourselves: Growing Stronger and Better Together,” our 6th annual conference will continue to focus on advancing women scientist-leaders in the bioscience ecosystem by focusing on their collective importance, strengths and opportunities for growth. Our emcee will be one of our industry’s foremost advocates,  Michele Oshman, Vice President, External Affairs, Executive Director, Council of State Bioscience Associations, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).

We are excited for two fantastic panels!  The first, “My Journey in Life Science Leadership,” moderated by Mia Masten, Senior Director of Patient Advocacy at Pfizer, will feature Sally Allain, Regional Head, JLABS @Washington DC, and Kyeonghee Monica Lee, Associate Fellow, Regulatory Sciences, Altria Client Services.  These fantastic leaders spotlight the unique professional and personal journeys of women biotech leaders in our ecosystem.  The second panel is entitled “Startup Funding & Careers in Venture Capital:  Addressing Both Sides of the Table.”  Moderated by Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh, Co-Founder & Managing Director, MEDA Angels, the panel will feature Laura Davis, Lead, Boston Chapter of Golden Seeds and Dana Sun, Senior Associate at OCA Ventures and Liz Sara, Founder & CEO, Best Marketing and with Citrine Angels. Tune in to this panel to learn what investors look for in biotech companies as potential investment recipients, and also what it takes to become an investor yourself!

This year’s keynote speaker is Susan Devore, former CEO of Premier, Inc, a publicly traded healthcare improvement company uniting an alliance of approximately 4,400 U.S. hospitals and health systems and more than 225,000 other providers and organizations.  With 40 years of health care experience and leadership, she was named multiple times to Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People and Top 25 Women in Healthcare lists, was the recipient of the Charlotte Business Journal’s 2018 Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award and was named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s 2017 100 Great Healthcare Leaders to Know.  Join us to hear from one of the industry’s foremost pathmakers in healthcare leadership!

This hybrid half-day virtual conference will have new and engaging networking and collaboration tools and activities. Content will be available to every attendee online, but we have also designated 5 locations across Virginia and Washington, DC that can each accommodate up to 30 in-person attendees. The specific locations are: Charlottesville (Indoor Biotechnologies), Newport News (ivWatch), Roanoke (Virginia Western Community College), Richmond (GSK Consumer Healthcare), and NoVa/Washington DC (JLABS Hosting at the Children’s National Research and Innovation Campus). An interactive event will feature tools to help us all connect on-site or virtually with in-platform chat and speaker Q&A features, a conferenced LinkedIn group an am immersive “backstage” experience for attendees!  For more info and to register, please click here.  We look forward to seeing you on Thursday!

Biotech & Beer is Back! Join Virginia Bio at the Northern Virginia BioHub’s First In-Person Event!  We are so very happy to be in-person to resume our premier networking social event with our partners at the Prince William Science Accelerator, the Mason Institute for Biohealth Innovation and CIT on October 7 at 4p at the Northern Virginia BioScience Center.  Come hear featured remarks by Matthew Miessau from Epidarex Capital and tour the first turn-key wet lab facility in Northern Virginia!  For more information and registration, click here.

Upcoming Events:

Please click here to see the most current information and registration links for all of Virginia Bio’s and our industry’s events.  Here is a summary of other upcoming events, as of this writing:

  • October 14, 2021: *Virtual* Commercialization & Leadership Luncheon: Breast Cancer Awareness Month with Acomhal Research.
  • October 19-21, 2021: George Mason University’s Accelerate 2022 Pitch Competition. From the website: “The competition fuels innovation-based business growth by showcasing the best and brightest new business concepts to potential investors to foster their development within Metro DC. The competition targets entrepreneurs with early- to mid-seed-stage businesses.”  Register here.
  • October 27-29, 2021: Southeast Life Sciences AdvanSE Annual Conference, PitchRounds and SE Surge, October 27-29, Wild Dunes Resort Charleston, SC. Register here.
  • November 18, 2021: Commercialization & Leadership Luncheon: Business Valuation for Life Science Companies with Cherry Bekaert.

Your Ideas.  Virginia Bio wants to hear from you!  Contact us at questions@vabio.org with your ideas, comments, suggestions and advice regarding how Virginia Bio can best support you and our biotechnology ecosystem.

Please stay safe and let us know how we can help you.  Thank you for all that you do to make Virginia’s life science ecosystem stronger!

John

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