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International Biotech Convention Will Highlight Region’s Progress

A forthcoming downtown convention will provide a platform for area companies to tout San Diego as one of the country’s most innovative hubs for biotechnology.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, will host its International Convention June 23 to 26. The convention is expected to attract more than 15,000 biotech executives, scientists and policymakers from around the world — funneling millions of dollars into the regional economy from attendee dining, lodging and schmoozing. BIO has held the convention in San Diego twice before, in 2008 and 2001.

“San Diego’s really matured as life sciences powerhouse since the last time BIO was here,” said Joe Panetta, president and CEO of San Diego industry trade group

Biocom. “We’re looking forward to using the convention to showcase how we’ve created a globally competitive life sciences culture in San Diego.”

Some 50,000 employees are employed in San Diego’s life sciences sector, and the BIO conference will be an important platform to highlight the “ecosystem of innovation” in the region. Such conferences have helped area companies forge partnerships with other biotechs across the country and across the world, Panetta said.

New to the BIO convention is a digital health area, in which companies will be able to play up the importance of wireless devices in medicine and pharmaceuticals. A digital health focus wasn’t on the organizers’ radar when BIO last came to San Diego, but technology has shifted so dramatically in the past six years that it’ll be front and center for this conference, Panetta said.

Among the many presenters in the digital health section of the conference will be San Diego’s MDRevolution Inc., a company whose software pools health and fitness data from a variety of sources and enables patients to track their health in real time on a digital dashboard; and DexCom Inc., a maker of blood sugar monitors for diabetics that resemble smart phones.

The conference has business implications that span sectors, which can be evidenced by the fact that a number of area companies setting up as exhibitors in the expansive conference aren’t actually biotechs. They include D&K Engineering Inc., a San Diego product engineering company whose electromagnetic components cater to the defense and medical device industries; Knobbe Martens, an intellectual property law firm; and California Commercial Security, which provides fire systems and intrusion alarms.

The four-day convention is projected to generate $56.3 million in economic benefits to the San Diego region. BIO’s economic impact includes $24.8 in direct spending, $8.3 million in lodging, $3.4 million in food and beverage, and $1.6 million in retail spending, according to the San Diego Convention Center Corp.

Indeed, conventions such as BIO’s are powerful economic drivers in San

Diego. This year, 15 medical meetings will take place at the San Diego Convention Center; they are estimated to generate $425.9 million in economic impact this year. Comic-Con, San Diego’s largest convention, brings in about $162 million in economic impact for San Diego each year.

“It may not be Comic-Con, but those in biotech spend twice as much as Comic-

Con visitors,” said Francis Barazza, speaking on behalf of San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who has declared the week of June 23 as Bio International Convention week in the city.

Business magnate Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, will be one the keynote speakers, speaking at noon June 24. And former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will deliver a second keynote address at the convention, speaking at noon June 25.

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