By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN
Prep for the June mega-events in San Diego, BIO Convention and the neighboring RESI, starts now. We’re 7 weeks out and it’s getting warm. In another week, the Heat is On by Glen Frey. Three weeks or so after that, scheduling starts and it’s Hot Hot Hot by Buster Poindexter. Finally, when partnering starts on June 22, it’s the Heat of the Moment by Asia. 80s music references aside, here are the top things you need to do NOW to ensure your company succeeds:
- Register. Want to meet investors funding seed through series B and pharma external innovation? There will be over 300 at RESI. Click here to take advantage of RESI early bird rates.
- Consider registering to pitch, with many opportunities throughout Convention week. Pitching at RESI puts you in front of a panel of well-aligned investors who are obligated to be interactive and give you feedback.
- Log into the partnering system and find your ideal partners. Repeat this every week to account for new registrants. At RESI this is straightforward as the LSN staff populates investors profiles very granularly based on the LSN Investor Database. Investors are carefully vetted. Searching for investors interested in a given modality, disease, geography, stage, etc. is fast. Searching for well-aligned partners in the larger Convention ecosystem can require more oversight (e.g. is an in-licensor looking for early stage, late stage or on-market assets?) Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
- Open as much availability on your calendar/agenda as possible. Convention week is NOT the time to block the early morning time slots because you want to sleep in 😉
- Send customized meeting requests. Meetings are more likely to be accepted if you spend some effort customizing each meeting request to the interests of the receiving company. Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
- Minimize the number of people from your company who are required to attend the meeting. The fewer people in the meeting the more likely it is to get scheduled (if it’s accepted).
- Follow-up on unanswered meeting requests. As someone who’s been behind the scenes running partnering at dozens of partnering events, I can tell you there is a complex series of variables that determines if your meeting request gets accepted. Sometimes it’s as simple as the person who would accept your meeting request did not register until later, even though his/her colleagues registered earlier. That’s why it’s important not let unanswered meeting requests languish indefinitely. Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
- Cancel ‘dead’ unanswered meeting requests. When you determine you won’t get a response for a given meeting request, cancel it to increase your meeting request allotment. Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
- When scheduling starts, immediately reach out to the other party for meetings that cannot be scheduled due to lack of mutual availability. You can also try reaching out to the partnering system administrators to see if they can help.
- Practice your meeting presentation to ensure everything gets finished in the allotted time. For Convention, 25 minutes is a good guide, as meetings can be far apart from each other. For RESI, 30 minutes as meetings are physically close together. To get between RESI and Convention, plan at least 20 minutes.
- Take advantage of virtual partnering. RESI provides virtual partnering during Convention week and the following week. Extend your ROI by continuing the momentum of Convention week into the next week.
- Be prompt about your follow-up the week after Convention.
Whew! I’m So Tired (by the Beatles) just writing this, I can’t imagine how I feel after I go through the Convention Week + RESI gauntlet! For more details on how to succeed at Convention & RESI, join my webinar on May 20 for all the best tips and tricks!
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