We were proud to join hundreds of Florida’s executives, scientists, researchers, investors, legislators, and service providers from the biopharmaceutical, medical device, and healthIT at the recent BioFlorida Annual Conference to celebrate Florida innovation and achievements — and to share some of our own.
The conference, held in Ft. Lauderdale on October 14-16, addressed distinct areas of strength for Florida’s life science industry such as regenerative medicine, neurosciences, and cancer with a special focus on Latin America and potential areas of collaboration. Attendees also gained insights from industry experts on how to grow their businesses, with dedicated sessions on funding, commercialization, pricing, and reimbursement.
Chief Scientific Officer James J. Hickman represented Hesperos at a special Spotlight on Innovation session, which featured four companies that have achieved major milestones. Other participants were TherapeuticsMD (Boca Raton), CTD Holdings, Inc. (Gainesville), and HedgePath Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Tampa).
He also presented the latest company developments at a session on Next Generation Medical Technology. Hesperos’s unique technology seeks to develop multi-organ human avatars to augment and eventually replace animals in drug testing and for toxicological evaluations.
Hesperos was chosen in part as they are one of the few companies in this new area of human-on-a-chip systems that are one of the fastest growing technologies in the pharmaceutical industry.
BioFlorida represents nearly 6,000 establishments and research organizations in the biopharmaceutical, medical technology and bioagriculture sectors that collectively employ nearly 83,000 Floridians.
“Our industry is a major and ever-growing economic driver in Florida with the number of companies in the state’s biotechnology industry growing 14.7% in 2017 alone, making it one of the stronger growth years since 2008 and surpassing the national average,” said Nancy K. Bryan, President and CEO of BioFlorida. “The BioFlorida Annual Conference unites the state’s life science leaders to celebrate scientific and business achievements, explore high-impact public policy initiatives, and drive partnerships to continue the growth of the industry in Florida.”
The conference offered a great chance for Hesperos to connect with fellow Florida businesses, and we’re excited to broaden our involvement in growing the prominence of the pharmaceutical industry in The Sunshine State. Even though Florida is not considered a pharmaceutical hub, we are working on partnerships with Florida-based companies to allow them to use our platform, giving them a competitive advantage.
We are also delighted to be featured as a Florida Company to Watch on the GrowFL site, and to be honored at their awards ceremony in February. We were also included in GrowFL’s Florida Companies to Watch Special Edition newsletter.
“Our systems produce functional readouts that mimic readouts a doctor would do while interacting with a patient. Instead of only looking at bio-markers, we can measure output directly,” Hickman said in the article. “Most people have no idea that this capability is out there and that one of the best companies doing it is right here in Orlando, Florida.”
Read the full article here.OCTOBER 17, 2018