Events

ORYZON’s CEO Dr. Buesa at the Spain/U.S. Business Life Sciences and Health Conference Chicago 03.05.2010 Organized by the Cervantes Institute of Chicago, in collaboration with the Trade Commission of Spain in Chicago & the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), the forum “Spain/U.S. Business Life Sciences and Health Conference” Thye Panelists were Carlos Paya, MD, PhD, President of Elan; Christopher Healey, Vice-President of Institutional Relations of Grifols; Carlos Buesa, PhD, CEO of Oryzon Genomics and vice-president of Asebio and  Brian F. Scullion, M.D., director of the Investment Bank  William Blair & Company.  Difficulties in finding funding, above all venture capital —mainly due to the lack of specialized companies— and the need to incorporate executives with international management knowledge and experience that can drive business development are the main challenges facing the biotech sector in Catalonia and Spain. Carlos Buesa, CEO of Oryzon Genomics and vice-president of Asebio, highlighted these issues in his presentation to the Spanish Business Forum, held yesterday at the Instituto Cervantes in Chicago. This was just one of the many events prior to the official inauguration of the BIO convention, the most important international fair in the biotech sector, which will be inaugurated this morning (9.45 am, local time) in the capital of Illinois.Yesterday, the majority of the extensive delegation attended the Spanish Business Forum, which was presided over by the Spanish minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade, Miguel Sebastian, who highlighted the growing importance of companies in the healthcare and life sciences sector for the international presence of Spanish companies. As an example, he pointed out the development of Catalan company Grifols, one of the first companies in the world to develop and market hemoderivatives. In the debate following his talk, Brian F. Scullion, from William Blair & Company’s Healthcare Investment Banking Group, pointed out that the funding difficulties Spanish biotech companies experience, as mentioned by Buesa, are directly connected to an international trend in venture capital (VC) to reduce investment and seek out more short-term returns.