As the New Year begins, I hope each of you have made a resolution to attend the upcoming AUTM Annual Meeting which will be held in San Antonio, February 27th – March 2nd. While I recognize we all have many commitments for our time, I wanted to list the top 5 reasons why I think you should attend the AUTM 2013 Annual Meeting:
1) Quality Educational Sessions: As always, the Annual Meeting is chock full of timely and informative educational sessions – 59 to be exact (not including the additional sessions listed below). Whether you are interested in the latest strategies for evaluating, patenting, marketing, managing a startup company, drafting agreements, monitoring agreement compliance or dozens of others you will find a session at the Annual Meeting! For those attorneys in attendance, we will have 12 hours of CLE credit available (including 3 hours of Ethics credit!).
2) Get Deals Done!
- Meet Future Licensees: If you are a licensor interested in meeting face to face with a potential licensee, here are some of the many companies that will be represented at this year’s Annual Meeting: AstraZeneca, Athena Diagnostics, Baxter Healthcare, Chevron Energy, Cook Medical, Dow Agrosciences, Elanco Animal Health, Eli Lilly and Company, EMD Millipore, GlaxoSmithKline, L’Oréal, Merck and Company, Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Nestle Purina Petcare, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Novus Biologicals, Promega, Reckitt Benckiser, Sanofi Pharmaceuticals, Shell Oil Company, Sigma-Aldrich, Syngenta Biotechnology, and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
- Meet Future Licensors: If you are a company interested in meeting literally hundreds of technology transfer decision makers representing 200+ academic institutions, hospitals and medical centers and government organization worldwide, then the AUTM Annual Meeting is the place for you (and having an exhibit booth would provide you even more exposure).
3) Networking, Networking, Networking! This year, we are unveiling AUTM ConnectTM - a powerful partnering tool that allows you set up meetings intuitively and quickly with AUTM attendees even before you set foot in San Antonio. In addition to this new software (which is awesome!), we have also set aside more networking tables and increased the networking times. Oh, and since the majority of attendees will have smartphones, we have created Apple and Android AUTM ConnectTM apps available for download now! Are you interested in getting a face to go with a company? Then also attend the Industry-Academia Partnering Forum and reception Thursday, February 28 from 4 – 6p.m. and make those contacts!
4) Hear from Experts:
- The Honorable Judge Rader (the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) will sit down with AUTM President-elect Sean Flanigan for a Fireside Chat to discuss recent court decisions and how the America Invents Act will impact technology transfer professionals.
- Eric Ries (the author of “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses”) will provide a dynamic and thought provoking presentation about the lean startup movement and how we can tap into that mentality to better commercialize technologies.
- Several oil, gas, and green energy experts will sit down with AUTM President Todd Sherer in a roundtable format to explore the energy industry and its nexus with technology transfer.
5) See Firsthand What Works, and What Doesn't in a Pitch Presentation: Join us for the AUTM Venture Forum (Friday, March 1, 9 a.m. -12:30 p.m.) where university-related startup companies will pitch their company to a panel of seasoned investors. Learn what types of questions investors will want you to answer, and more, and see who wins the big cash prize!
Don't forget to register by February 7th.
See you in San Antonio!
Steve Susalka
Assistant Vice-President, Annual Meeting