One-stop Shopping for Pharma, Medical Devices

Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 4/1/2008 11:42:00 AM

The value for the attendee of the many vertical health care association shows is the inherent high degree of specialization. Once a year, head and neck surgeons or allergy specialists get together and talk with colleagues about their unique specialties.

However, for-profit show management firms are beginning to find success with larger, more horizontal shows they believe will attract attendees who are interested in something more akin to one-stop shopping when they look for new medical devices or pharmaceuticals.

With that in mind, in the last three months, Canon Communications has launched three new health care-related events and acquired another, all this at a business-to-business publishing firm that wasn’t involved in any way with health care two years ago.

In January, Canon announced it would hold the first PharmaMed Marketing & Media, a conference and tradeshow for pharmaceutical and medical device marketing executives, Sept. 15-16 at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick, N.J. 

In February, it acquired Pharmpack, a pharmaceutical packaging show held in Paris, from the French Organization of Intl. Congresses and Exhibitions. At the same time, Canon announced it would launch BioMeDevice Europe and collocate it with Pharmpack next year. BioMeDevice, focusing on biopharmaceuticals, was first held October 2007 in San Jose, Calif.

Finally, Canon announced last month that it would launch Medtec France April 22-23, 2009, in Besancon, France. The company already has versions of the medical device show in Germany, China, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Japan.

“Now we’re going to take a little breather,” Canon spokesman Dan Cutrone said of the company’s rapid launch-and-buy spree.

Cutrone noted that, while health care events were a relatively new market for Canon, it has been aggressive for some time in developing events for advanced manufacturing areas.

Many of the exhibitors he expects at the health care-related shows Canon has acquired or launched are in other manufacturing areas as well. Canon also organizes five editions of Medical Design & Manufacturing spread around the United States. The January show in Anaheim was collocated with seven other manufacturing-related shows ranging from electronics to plastics to packaging.

“You have more and more suppliers looking at where the long-term profitability is,” Cutrone said. “When they ask where the deep pockets are, it’s pharma and medical devices. It’s just a case of ‘follow the money.’”

Canon isn’t the only for-profit that sees the wisdom of offering multiple health care-related offerings at once.

Reed Exhibitions’ pharmaceutical-related Interphex, held March 26-28 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, was collocated for the first time with Biotechnica, Deutche Messe’s major annual biotechnology show. For the second year, it was collocated with PharmaMedDevice, meaning this year attendees had access to the latest developments in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and biotech.

“Adding Biotechnica gave us more of a clinical side and not just stainless steel, which is what we call it,” said Kevin Richards, vice president of international brand development for Interphex. “One buyer said it best: ‘If you can’t find it at Interphex, it’s not out there.’”