State Leaders Offer Takeaway Comments On SCBIO Live 2015 From Charleston

SCBIO Live 2015 was held in Charleston Nov. 5-6 and included keynote speakers such as the Lead Director at Immucor Inc., William Hawkins III, President and CEO of Cipher Pharmaceuticals, Shawn Patrick O’Brien, the Senior Global Medical Director of Baxter Healthcare, Mark Delegge, MD., and many others. South Carolina Manufacturing’s editors recently caught-up with some of them to get their thoughts on the event.

Sachin Patel, Director of Technology at the Medical University South Carolina

“The conference has been good and very informative. There are real people telling real stories.”

Matthew Gevaert, CEO of Kiyatec Inc.

“The conference is a much needed event in South Carolina because it gets everyone in the same room. The event allows mutual knowledge and growth that we need to succeed.”

Bill Westin, CFO of Adancen MOD Corporation

“The conference is educational, and as a one of the speakers highlighted, the VC companies don’t find you money, you have to find your own money. That is the strongest thing.”

Bre Przestrzelski, PhD candidate at Clemson University

“I was one of the competitors in the SCRA pitch competition and I have made several great connections looking to invest and help move our product forward. The event is really exciting.”

Tom McLean, Managing Partner of BioPharm Strategies and former chairman of SCBIO

“SCBIO is a tremendous networking organization. It connects all of the research universities in South Carolina including Clemson University, the University of South Carolina, and the Medical University South Carolina. We have seen a huge increase in communication between schools because of SCBIO and we are also a network organization for drug executives, device executives, and diagnostic executives from companies in our state. There is no other entity in South Carolina that connects all of us together to grow life science.”

Wayne Roper, President of SCBIO

“We are really pleased with the turnout for this year’s conference. This is the largest conference we have ever had and it shows the growing wave of interest in the life sciences. We have students and people from all three regions of the state attending. It is a statewide event.”