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Sino-American Trade Group Fosters Partnerships

A growing life sciences trade organization has found its niche in promoting cross-Pacific partnerships.

The Sino-American Biotechnology and Phramaceutical Professionals Association, or SABPA, held its second annual Pacific Forum on Life Science Alliances on Nov. 4 at UC San Diego. The event attracted around 200 attendees seeking information on trends in cross-Pacific partnering among life sciences firms.

But the successful conference isn’t the budding nonprofit’s largest event. Its annual bio-pharmaceutical conference held in San Diego this year drew 500 attendees. The group will co-sponsor a dinner this month for the Chinese ambassador to the United States and has been pursued by groups across China seeking partnerships with American companies and venture capitalists, said Zhu Shen, senior director of business development at San Diego-based Immusol Inc. and a member of SABPA’s board of directors.

Founded in 2002 by a group of Chinese-American life sciences executives and scientists primarily from the San Diego labs of New York City-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., SABPA now has 1,000 members in chapters here and in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Hui Li, president of SABPA and principal scientist of medicinal chemistry at Pfizer, was a founding member.

“We want to be of value to the community, that’s essentially the driver for us,” he said.

SABPA leaders say they want to capitalize on the group’s ability to promote, educate and even facilitate cross-Pacific partnerships, but they want to do so with a broader audience , Asians and non-Asians alike, said Shen.

SABPA is gaining visibility and has been able to anchor big-name sponsors such as Novartis, Pfizer, Merck and a host of locally based life sciences companies such as Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ascenta Therapeutics Inc. and GenWay Biotech Inc.

“More people outside of the Chinese community are attending our events and taking an interest,” said Shen.

Li sees SABPA, which has more than doubled its membership since 2003, remaining a Southern California organization.

“If the past tells us about the future, there’s still quite a bit of room to grow considering the number of people here in this industry,” he said.

Academic Collaboration

SABPA has formed a relationship with UCSD and often uses its facilities for events. Alan Paau, vice chancellor of technology transfer at UCSD, addressed attendees at the Pacific Forum about licensing opportunities in Asia.

Joe Panetta, chief executive officer of the largest life sciences trade group here, Biocom, gave the opening remarks at this month’s Pacific Forum.

Shen believes SABPA eventually has the potential to grow as large as Biocom, which has more than a dozen paid staff members and about 500 member companies.

Panetta was in meetings and could not comment for the article, said Biocom spokesman Tim Ingersoll, but according to the group’s Web site, Biocom, too, had humble beginnings.

Biocom was formed after a merger in 1995 of the Biotechnology Industry Council and the San Diego Biocommerce Association , both informal groups in their early days. After the merger, Duane Roth, today CEO of Connect, a trade group promoting life sciences and technology locally, became Biocom’s first chairman.

Today, Biocom hosts an array of educational seminars, has a public policy arm, its own magazine and a purchasing group, which helps members get discounts on supplies, for example.

Li said SABPA would eventually like to have a few paid staffers, a magazine and to continue to provide educational forums and other programs for the industry. But he said the two groups serve different niches. While Biocom’s members are typically companies that join as a whole, SABPA offers individual memberships.

“We want to stay connected and focused on the Pacific,” Li said. “We figured this organization would be valuable because there was nothing like it.”

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