2024 Biotech Summit Highlights Federal Innovation Speakers & Innovation Showcase

Biotech Summit: The Oregon Bio Annual Conference 

Held at the Knight Cancer Institute’s campus at Portland’s South Waterfront, this year’s Biotech Summit Annual Conference, Innovation Showcase and Bio on the Vine events conveyed the importance of bringing together industry executives, scientists, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to focus on the region’s thriving bioscience sector and identify ways public and private institutions can collaborate to accelerate future innovation and growth. 

The content theme for the all-day conference focused squarely upon bringing in myriad leaders from key federal agencies to pull down their respective missions and inform attendees about how to interact with those missions, and who leads those efforts.

Key leaders were in the room, serving as session speakers on topics of federal innovation initiatives, adopting emerging technology and digital tools:

• Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s Stephen Konya, Senior Advisor and Innovation Portfolio Lead, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy
• HHS – U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) ‘s Mark Byers, Public Health Analyst; Angela Dunn, Investigation and Response, Office of Public Health Data and Technology
• U.S. Veterans Health Administration’s Beth Ripley, Deputy Chief, Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning 
• HHS – US Food and Drug Administration’s Robert Wright, Patient Science and Engagement
• Economic Development Administration’s J. Wesley Cochran, Economic Development Representative

Local company leaders and researchers participating on panels included John Harkness, Founder & CEO at Rewire AI, Holly Rockweiler, CEO at Madorra; Luiz Bertassoni, Professor and Director of the Knight Cancer Precision Biofabrication Hub at OHSU; and Christie Dudenhoefer, Life Science Manager at Hewlett-Packard Inc. Liisa Bozinovic, Executive Director at Oregon Bio, introduced the regional focus on microfluidics.

Federal experts shared their contact information and the optimal ways to contact them. Panels and interactive discussions also included how to connect and succeed in working with federal agencies, and how innovation is being fueled through the national framework of policy, coordination and regulations to facilitate discovery that ultimately advances patient care.  

Oregon Bio Chair Nancy Lime delivered the opening remarks for the Biotech Summit and Innovation Showcase.

The Innovation Showcase

Throughout the Summit, the robust startup pitch event took place to hear from new and emerging companies of all early stages vying for wins of cash and industry-related services. There were four categories of entries – Basic Science and Research, Translational Research, Early State and Later Stage.

Industry reviewers selected entries which showcased viability and potential for future adaptation and success. Innovation Showcase judges included Danny Kuntz, Ph.D. of Seran Bioscience; Katerina de Metz of OrganOx; Erica Schlesinger of Seran Bioscience; Tom Scanlon, Ph.D. of OHSU; Erik Tucker of Aronora; and Andrew Watson, Ph.D. of Mayo Clinic. 

Jackie Wirz, Executive Director at Oregon Residency Collaborative Alliance served as MC for the Basic Research and Translational Research pitch rounds. Sally Bell, Innovation Strategist at Business Oregon, hosted the Early-Stage and Later-Stage competitions.

The winner of the Judges Award for Basic Research was Lia Choi from Valley Catholic High School for her project, Multi-Directional Cell Stretching Device for Cardiomyocyte Stimulation.

As a Translational Research entry, Matthew Rames of the OSHU Knight Cancer Institute’s Center for Early Detection and Research was named by both the judges and the People’s Choice award for his project, Rapid and Precise Antibody Bioengineering for Multiplexing in Spatial Omics Platforms. The judges named Matthew Bryant from Verundus Pharma Inc. winner in the Early-Stage category for his entry, PARP11 Inhibitor Reversed Multiple Immunosuppressive Mechanisms in Tumors.

Both the Judges’ and the People’s Choice awards in the Later-Stage Company competition went to Pete Campbell of Siloam Vision for his project and campaign, Oregon’s Impact on Reducing Childhood Blindness Worldwide.

The People’s Choice winners for the Basic Research category included  Natanya Villegas of the University of Oregon’s Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Discovery for her project, Improving Single-Guide RNA Libraries for Greater Uniformity and Affordability. The winner of the People’s Choice award in the Early-Stage category was Adam Tuttle of EnterX Biosciences, Inc for his project, EnterX: Opening the Way for Retinal Delivery of Genetic Medicines.

Innovation Showcase winners received over $20,000 in cash and in-kind prizes, including Oregon Bio memberships and BioPro class awards, and Oregon Entrepreneurs Network memberships, program admissions, and 'swag bags.'

With over two hundred attendees, Oregon Bio’s 2024 Bio Summit, Innovation Showcase and Bio on the Vine networking event created important conversations, national connections and industry leadership perspectives to bolster the bioscience and medtech sector in our region and beyond.

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