Biotech Showcase Conference: Notes from the Floor, Day Two

On Tuesday (January 9) the Biotech Showcase conference continued into its second day of action and the Investing News Network (INN) was there to get some of the highlights from the public presenting companies sharing their vision moving forward. To recap day one of the conference, we’ve got everything you need to know covered here. 
Highlights from day two of the conference include: more company presentations–from oral drug deliveries, to treating chronic coughs, to companies discussing lead candidates and–finally–a panel discussion on the growth of data in investing with life science companies.
If you missed day two of the conference–don’t worry–here INN offers investors a quick look at the second day of the Biotech Showcase Conference.

Later INN had the opportunity to sit in at the presentation from BELLUS Health (TSX:BLU), a company focused on a candidate designed to treat chronic coughing. One of the key advantages of their candidate is that the company built it in response to the method proposed by Merck (NYSE:MRK), which caused patients to lose their taste.
President and CEO Roberto Bellini told the audience chronic cough affects 10 percent of the adult population. Bellini also emphasized the company is fully financed for the next two years of development.
After this meeting, INN attended the presentation for Sierra Oncology (NASDAQ:SRRA) a company heavily involved with one of the most rapidly expanding subsectors of biotech, immuno oncology. The company’s CEO Dr. Nick Glover told INN they have one of the most unique positions in the I/O space and are prepared to meet a potential fatigue of the industry.

Next presentation is for $SRRA CEO Dr. Glover tells the audience of their therapies against cancer #BTS18 pic.twitter.com/aTE1aKULmE

— Bryan Mc Govern @ BTS18 (@McGbryan) January 9, 2018

The company will be offering a variety of updates to their programs at the end of January and into February, there is a potential for these announcements to provide a significant catalyst for investors to be aware of. These announcements relate to new data from their ongoing studies on their I/O candidates. The company also told investors it is funded to carry on business activities until mid 2019.

$SRRA says it will give updates to investors in February to its lead candidates SRA737 and SRA737-02 #BTS18

— INN Life Science (@INN_LifeScience) January 9, 2018

Following that presentation, INN visited with Synthetic Biologics (NYSE:SYN), a small market cap opportunity on the NYSE. Their two lead candidates, SYN-004 and SYN-010, are designed to maintain the natural balance of the gut microbiome for the prevention of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and irritable bowel syndrome with constipation.
The company is awaiting for an end of phase 2 meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to establish their phase 3 model for SYN-004, but the company said their candidate “is ready” for the critical development stage.
To cap off the day, INN sat in on a panel evaluating the growing role of data in terms of investment with life science companies. While a majority of the conversation moved towards venture capitalist investment and the need for growing data credibility in the medical landscape, some elements of this panel could be helpful to public market investors.
The moderators for this panel, called “Data as the new rocket fuel for healthcare investing,” included Steve Dickman, who said every life science company needs to have a data strategy and investors should be more aware of developments in this area.
The panel discussed how previous failures in data models becoming a working reality for the medical sector, had caused investors to sour on this notion. However the panel was insistent on the reliance of smart data can help disrupt the traditional drug discovery employed in the market.
Stay tuned for our additional coverage on the Biotech Showcase conference, where we will post information on the various panels and the work of presenting public companies. Follow us on Twitter at @INN_LifeScience for more photos from the show floor.
Don’t forget to follow us @INN_LifeScience  for real-time news updates.

Securities Disclosure: I, Bryan Mc Govern, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.