Partnering with Lions and Panthers at BIO-Europe®

Grüß Gott World! BIO-Europe® in Munich, Germany, is coming up from November 6 – 8, 2023. Now is the time to get your partneringONE® activities ready for Europe’s biggest, and best, gathering of biopharma professionals. Let us help you prepare for productive partnering meetings alongside 2,500+ companies from 65+ countries. You can register here to take advantage of early-bird savings.

But first, take a close look at the beautiful Great Bavarian State Emblem, established 1950, pictured below, as there are some important heraldic aspects to consider. Bear with us, this is going somewhere relevant to partnering.

The Great Bavarian State Emblem

Note the extensive use of gold lions, with two of the majestic lords of the jungle holding the shield, plus one on black contained within the top left quarter, and not one, or two, but three in black on gold in the bottom right quarter. That’s a roar-some amount of lions representing Bavarian Dukes, Counts, and modern-day administrative districts. As you approach your partnering, and how to make the best of your allocation of 150 invites on partneringONE, consider what it is that makes your company stand out. What makes your messages roar? BIO-Europe 2023 is expected to continue to raise the bar this year with over 5,000 attendees expected. You need to ensure your voice is heard, and you’re saying the right words in the right way to the right people to get noticed. Not sure how best to do that? We got you covered- sink your claws into “You’ve Got History – Tagging the Best of partneringONE®” and  “The Key to Playing Harmoniously at BIO-Europe Spring® Digital 2021,”  two pieces of quality advice articles on making the most of the partneringONE system. But remember, let your hustle be louder than your mouth, or indeed roar, which we will come onto below.

Now, some places might consider six lions in fine feline form sufficient to convey messages about power, money, and influence. But in all good messaging there should be tiers. Hook your claws into that business prospect with your top-line about why your asset is amazing. Now, follow up with second tier. Did you see the panther on the emblem? Normal standard colours for panthers, absent any genetic tinkering using CRISPR, are black, dark-brown, and pink*. But wait, what’s this in the bottom left quadrant of the emblem? A blue panther? It represents the regions of Lower and Upper Bavaria, and for our partnering purposes of second tier messaging the important point is it looks different and stands out. What makes your partnering offering stand out? Is it some clever mechanism of action? A novel way to treat an unmet medical needs? Extensive haplotype data showing how it works around the world for lions and panthers, of all colours? Why are you a cool cat and not a standard moggy that’s unlikely to secure a second glance let alone a saucer of premium cow’s milk from edelweiss fed Alpine herds?

That’s the animal aspects of the emblem pawed over for partnering purposes. What else could give you the edge as you focus on your hustle across the bustle of the Bavarian partnering booths? Note the crown at the top edge, which symbolizes the sovereignty of the people after the abolition of the royal crown. Our business is a people business in a very powerful way: we create the diagnostics, devices, medicines, and vaccines that save and improve lives. But do you have your story straight about the people aspect of your asset? Do not assume your audience knows the intricacies of the therapeutic area you are targeting, especially in rare diseases, but even in common diseases, as not everyone knows the difference between, say, Type I and Type II diabetes, or posterior versus anterior ocular diseases, and what scale the impact is on the global population. Have you spent effort to have your asset realistically valued: is this cat treat you’re offering premium organic salmon or just some dry nibbles? How does your area of work stack up against fighting, for example, cardiovascular disease which affects around 120 million people in the US, or break-bone fever which is classified by the WHO as a top ten global health threat..

We’re nearly there on our exploration of how heraldry powers partnering. Check out the red and silver triangles of the ‘Franconian Rake’ in the emblem’s top right, which stands for the three administrative districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia. Take this rake as a reminder to finely rake through your messages and have your top three arranged in the right order for your meetings.

The final emblem element, which you will see everywhere, from flags fluttering in the breeze, to cloths covering the tables of beer gardens, is the central shield feature of white and blue rhombuses (do not call them checks, bitte) which are the symbol of Bavaria as a whole. You will see they fit perfectly together, which you can take as a visual reminder to ensure everything in your story fits, as a lion, or panther, may say in a slow drawl, purr-fectly together too. Chuck out the checks and ride those rhombuses to roaring success at BIO-Europe 2023. Prost! You can register here to take advantage of early-bird savings.

*This may not be strictly true. But we bet that when we said panther some of you thought of the classic comedy mystery films series ‘The Pink Panther’, which just goes to show how important a single word can be in creating an association in the mind of the audience, which may be false. So test your messaging and elevator pitch on friends, family, and friendly felines, to check you’re not saying something that unintentionally misleads or distracts. Be a blue panther.