About the sponsors

	Atlas Venture is a leading international venture capital firm with over $2.5bn under management. Our life sciences team has been an early investor in over 90 biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical devices companies. Our active portfolio comprises approximately thirty life sciences companies today and we make several new investments each year, from seed stage to pre-IPO stage, as lead or co-lead investor, and with a magnitude of $5M to $20M in each company over time. We will also consider investments in undervalued public companies through PIPE offerings. Eighteen of our investments are public companies today, with an aggregate market capitalization of approximately $8 billion. They include companies such as Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Alnylam, Anadys, Crucell, deCODE Genetics, Exelixis, Momenta, MorphoSys and Nitromed.

	NIF SMBC Ventures is the leading Japanese venture capital firm, investing primarily in life sciences and information technology companies on a global basis. Founded in 1982, NIF SMBC Ventures currently has over $1.4 billion in capital under management. The firm is headquartered in Tokyo and has investing offices in the United States, Taiwan, and China. With over two decades in international investing, NIF SMBC investment team has established a deep network of industry contacts, enabling the firm to help its portfolio companies conduct corporate development activities across the border.

	ITOCHU Corporation is a leading Japanese general trading company, with offices in 76 countries and an annual turnover of $90 billion, making it one of the world's largest corporations. Founded in 1858 as an importer, exporter and wholesaler of textiles, ITOCHU has expanded into multiple types of businesses, ranging from those in the consumer and retail sectors, IT products and services, natural resource development and financial services to investment and project management. ITOCHU positions the innovative technology field as one of its priority business areas, taking advantage of its diverse capabilities and its relationships with numerous companies in a wide range of industries, developing businesses with its customers and strategic partners.

	Dechert LLP is an international law firm with offices throughout the United States and Europe. Our life sciences practice has a record of delivering results on M&A, Alliance, Capital Markets, Antitrust and Product Liability matters. Recent experience includes advising: Pfizer on its two plus-$500 million bio-dollar global collaborations in 2005 (with Incyte Pharmaceuticals for CCR2 antagonists and with Coley Pharmaceuticals for Coley’s ProMune® CPG 7909) and on its $1.3billion acquisition of Exubera interests in 2006 and $620 million acquisition of the Campto® cancer drug from Sanofi Aventis in 2004. BioAlliance on its €30 million IPO on Euronext Paris in 2005. AmerisourceBergen on its $900 million Rule 144A Senior Notes offering in 2005. Xytis Pharmaceuticals on its 2005 merger with Remergent and related Series B financing round. Merck in its successful 2005 New Jersey trial court defence involving the painkiller Vioxx®. GlaxoSmithKline in its product liability lawsuits concerning the cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol®.

	EBD Group is an international life science consultancy with offices in California, Munich and the UK . The conference arm of EBD is renowned for its organization of the world’s largest stand-alone life science partnering conference, BIO-Europe. We also offer BIO-Europe’s sister conference BIO-Europe Spring, the investment conference BioEquity Europe and the new medical technology event BioDevice Partnering. In addition, we provide custom partnering services for third party events. EBD also provides Business Development and Drug Development services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. Our Business Development consultants are experienced in the execution and successful closure of all types of partnering deals including: out-licensing, in-licensing and R&D collaborations. The services we provide encompass: Identification of potential partners, profiling/background research on these companies, initial introductions, location of in-licensing opportunities, and support of deal negotiations.