Leading Texas science organizations combine their annual life-sciences conferences

First event to be held at Rice University March 8

Three leading Texas life-science organizations — BioHouston, the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and the Texas Healthcare and BioScience Institute — today announced that they will combine their annual conferences to form a single annual event — the Texas Life Science Venture Forum. The first event will be March 8 on the Rice University campus in the BioScience Research Collaborative, 6500 Main St., in Houston.

The Texas Life Science Venture Forum is designed to support life-science entrepreneurs by connecting them with potential investors and strategic partners and provide an educational vehicle that showcases the vibrancy of the state’s life-science community. More than 40 new life-science startup companies and more than 50 life-science investors will participate in the event.

“Our organizations share many of the same goals in supporting life-sciences entrepreneurs in our state,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance. “We think we can reach more businesses and have a much bigger impact by combining our efforts.”

The meeting is expected to be the only event of its kind in the state and will bring the new Nature Publishing Group’s SciCafe to Texas March 7. The SciCafe has been running in Boston and San Francisco for more than three years and connects up-and-coming academic investigators with the venture/business community.

“We are encouraged by the progress we’ve seen to date, and Texas continues to be a fertile environment for some of the most innovative and promising medical technology,” said Jacqueline Northcut, president and CEO of BioHouston. “We believe that together we will attract more investors to create a larger, more vibrant life-science community within our state.”

In addition to providing much-needed support to entrepreneurs, the conference is designed to acknowledge and build upon existing advances in the Texas life-science community. To register for the event or to view the conference agenda, visit www.txlifescienceventureforum.org.

— Mary Lynn Fernau is the marketing director for the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.