BioForward 2018: Growing Life Science in Birmingham

Thu, 11/10/2018 - 16:31
Sciad BioForward

Sciad Communications joins OBN for the inaugural BioForward 2018 Conference

The Sciad team headed to Birmingham last week for OBN’s new event, BioForward. The event was the first ‘Roadmap for Growth’ life sciences event hosted by OBN and focussed on helping early stage, emerging, and developing life sciences companies maximise their chances of success. It was a great success, bringing together over 230 delegates from early stage biotech businesses to key suppliers and commercial service providers.

Birmingham University provided an impressive venue for the event, with the exhibition and partnering tables in the Aston Webb Great Hall being overlooked by a spectacular stained glass window. The day was made up of a combination of ‘How To’ sessions and panel discussions tackling the topics that have the greatest impact on early stage life science companies. These included financial management, securing the best talent, business location and manufacturing.

One of these ‘How To’ sessions was chaired by Sciad’s Director of Communications, Maria Patey. Maria was joined by Lisa Urqhart (Editor, Vantage), Kat Arney (Director, First Create the Media) and John Collins (Commercial Director, SynbiCITE) to discuss the most important aspects when managing your corporate reputation in the press. Managing your news-flow not only depends on distributing your news but also on telling your story in the most effective way, to the right people. The panel agreed that the most important considerations were why and wow: 

  • Why? – Who and what does your company impact? Why is your news important?
  • Wow – What is the wow factor? Do you have innovative technology, an acclaimed business leader or simply something that’s truly novel or impressive?

Once you’ve established these fundamental messages you can adapt the story to fit the stage the business is at and the people you are communicating with.

Following the success of the opening year, BioForward will return to Birmingham next year to continue to provide the best support and advice for growing life science businesses. For more information on managing your business’s news and communications and to find out how Sciad can help, get in touch.