Entrepreneurship & Small Chemical Businesses Programming MARM 2012

Entrepreneurship and Small Chemical Businesses Programming MARM 2012-UMBC, Baltimore

Chemistry on the Chesapeake

Thursday, May 31, 2012:

1:00pm-5:00pm - MEYR256 ACS Leadership Workshop: Fostering Innovation: We are constantly challenged to come up with new ideas, approaches, and solutions, yet most of us feel ill-equipped to do this effectively. With a systematic and proven process to generate ideas you can lead your team to develop new ideas. Gain the understanding and tools to tap into your own innovation style and stimulate innovative thinking among your committee members. Sponsored by ACS Leadership Advisory Board.

Friday, June 1, 2012:

9:30am-12:00pm – MEYR120 Best Steps for the Chemical Entrepreneur: Join us for an interactive and dynamic facilitated panel discussion as you follow along while these experts lead the way towards the best steps for chemical entrepreneur success.

Topics include: creating an organizational structure; various forms of intellectual property and their use as strategic business assets; alternative forms of funding/financing; and factors relating to enterprise success.   


Panelists include: Konstantina Katcheves (Lonza International)-intellectual property and collaborations, technology transfer, and acquisition; Jacque Allan (Saul Ewing)- entity formation and steps to prep for exit diligence; Robbie Melton(Tedco)- MD resources for the early stage entrepreneur. 

This programming is made possible by the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses (SCHB) MARM 2012 Program Chair, Gianna Arnold with additional support from SaulEwing LLP.

1:30am-5:30pm -MEYR120  Symposium: You Too Can Be an Entrepreneur or Partner with One

·  Introductory Comments: Bill Suits, ACS Career Consultant, Bedminster, NJ

·  How a Medicinal Chemist became the CEO of the Year,  Ramesh C. Pandey, Ph.D., GDP Ayurvedic University (GDPAU), New Brunswick, NJ- Importance of delivery on your commitment, which builds the credibility: focus, goal and vision are key. A difficult journey: from a scientist to an Entrepreneur /Businessman bringing the first “Generic Vancomycin” with LyphoMed, partnering with key individuals, surprises with new corporate affiliations, and first herbal product NICOSANTM for the treatment of Sickle Cell Disease (SCD).  Choosing the right partners, tenacity, persistence, passion and motivation of the group is important.

·  Entrepreneurship in Early Drug Discovery Research, Allen B. Reitz, Ph.D, CEO, ALS Biopharma, LLC, Doylestown, PA- The drug discovery effort worldwide has seen tremendous change in recent years involving high levels of generic substitution, stagnant productivity and innovation, and the globalization of contract research opportunities.  Innovation is coming more frequently from smaller, focused research groups, either in biotechnology companies or at drug discovery institutes affiliated with universities and non-profit research organizations.  This talk will focus on best practices in product development and innovation.   

·  The Reality of Entrepreneurship (Not the venture capital kind – the kind where you hang a shingle and start looking for customers), Donald Truss, Executive Director Staffing, Students2Science, Inc, East Hanover, NJ-A transformation from an analytical chemist to a 30 year business owner, perspectives on the typical entrepreneur and the ideal entrepreneur, lessons learned while assisting hundreds of small business owners with staffing issues, and suggested steps to take if starting a new business

·  How Can an Incubator Help the Entrepreneur? Some Success Stories, Ned D.Heindel, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA- After four years of declining venture capital support for start-up biopharmas, 2012 showed a rousing investment to early-stage innovators in the health science space.  Investors continue to favor device/diagnostic firms with a prototype in hand or therapeutic firms with a compound in the clinic. The phrases “de-risked investment” and “proof of concept” are on investor’s lips as a virtual requirement for putting funding in play. Comparisons will be presented of the technology plans, financial platforms for a dozen new firms and their products, and how association with an incubator contributed to their respective successes.  Symposium financed by PROF and cosponsored by BGMT  and SCHB.