Several of these kiosks dotted the highway close to the Libyan border.  We were told the containers hold black market fuel from Libya.  They also exchanged Libyan and Tunisian currency.

Caricature of JP Morgan as a bull

Every January an estimated 6,000 attendees descend like a cloud of dark suited locusts upon San Francisco’s Union Square at the Westin St. Francis hotel for the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, the Woodstock of healthcare/biotech investing and dealmaking.  This year, the mood ranged from cautious optimism to bullishness as attendees feverishly checked the pulse of the industry.  While 2009 was a good year for those with cash,  it was a forgettable year  for the have nots, especially early stage and capital intensive startups.

Sunday-Calm Before the Storm

The beat-the-crowd strategy by checking-in early to the conference Sunday afternoon is met with a long line of people with the same thought.  Fortunately the decision to return just before 9pm closing pays off.  In a  “green” move (and presumably to trim costs)  JPMorgan had gotten rid of the traditional bottled water, printed conference book, and even the name badge lanyards.  Strangely, they still handed out canvas conference totes with the JPM logo, empty.  Even the traditional VC reception had been canceled.

Monday-Don’t Walk and Text at the Same Time

Monday starts with a 7:30 networking breakfast at the Daily Grill then on to the main conference.  This is one event where security is tighter than a hot nightclub on a Friday evening.  Burly eagle-eyed security men check for crashers.  Why anyone would want to crash I do not know, given that most presentations are exceptionally dry and there are rare surprises.  CEOs and CFOs rattle off dry safe harbor statements before they flip through their Powerpoints.

The monotony is broken by a loud crash.  One large man tumbles halfway down the packed main staircase, miraculously landing unharmed, still clutching his Blackberry from which he had been texting.  In the lobby by the clock, there is palpable stress as people check peruse their calendars, and look out for their next appointment.

As the last official presentation yawns to a close, the many cocktail receptions and company dinners take over.  The under thirty-ish set flock to the Clift for the Lazard and Claris cocktails.  which resembles a frat party as the night wears on.  The tiny Four Seasons bar is packed.  At the Goodwin & Proctor Press Club event a a greyer crowd, those that remember when the conference was still  H&Q,  sample fine wines.

Tuesday- Panhandlers and Picketers

The congregation of suits attracts a number of San Francisco’s ubiquitous and enterprising panhandlers who have staked themselves outside the hotel asking for spare change.  Inside the lobby, it’s not much different as dozens of biotech startups attempt to wrangle more money out of venture capitalists and angel investors.  The tension in the narrow, crowded hallways and lobbies is looser today, probably due to the many and varied cocktail receptions from the night before.

I break away to have coffee with Damien Lim of Singapore’s Bioveda Capital who is currently advising a new Indian sponsored Asian Healthcare Fund.  He reports a handful of protesters outside the hotel picketing Merck.  Really? Why not the whole conference or JPMorgan itself?  Perplexing.

5:30 rolls around. First stop, the Bay City Capital reception,  where the mood is ebullient.  Fred Craves is chatting animatedly in the corner.  I say hi to venture partner Nick Pliam and his wife Vivian Lee of Aqua Partners and move on.  The BioCentury scotch tasting at the Hotel Monaco is a little more sedate as people sip 25 year Glenfarclas.  I catch the tail end of the Ropes & Gray reception at Postrio and head back to the hotel.

Wednesday-Take Me Home

Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall, CMO and SVP , kicks the Pfizer women’s breakfast off with a bang with inspirational personal anectdotes and career advice.  The conference, after all these years is still overwhelming male.  The conference itself goes until Thursday, but three days  is all I can take.  Shiny black hotel Prius hybrids wait outside the Clift (this is California after all) but we opt for the more economical city taxi for our airport ride.  The flight to New York is packed with other attendees also headed home.  I swap cards with my rowmate, a commercialization consultant, who is pumped about the conference.  We both agree: let’s hope for a good year.

Webcasts for most of the 300 companies presenting are publicly available at https://events.jpmorgan.com/

Rich Syrians are driving European cars and consuming European goods.  At Villa Modern, a luxury boutique department store housed in a 450 year old house on Straight St. in the Old City, there is a profusion of labels straight out of any upscale department store in Paris or Milan – Fendi, Ferragamo, Dior.  The chic saleswoman in a white hijab informs me the top seller there by far is Roberto Cavalli, followed by Gucci.  “Arabic women like sexy” she says.

Syrians are overwhelmingly friendly in general and, it seems, very concerned about what Americans think of them.  This despite the fact that real estate costs in Damascus has risen with demand from Iraqi refugees, both rich and poor, that have flooded the city over the years and strained the city’s services and infrastructure.

Also sadly, censorship appears to be very strong, especially on the internet.  Attempts to log onto Facebook, Blogger and the like were blocked by  SCS-Net.  Further investigation reveals SCS stands for Syria Computer Society, a  friendly looking website.

Overall a terrific event if you can endure the unmentionable food box lunch and the bevy of relentlessly networking PhDs.  Also the crowd was almost exclusively Chinese speaking Chinese.

An energetic Allen Grossman, Ex-CEO of Outward Bound and now professor at the Harvard Business School, blasts the nonprofit sector which he says has vastly underperformed its potential.  Thankfully he goes on to lay out some of the underlying reasons for this assessment.  The audience was a wide range of HBS alumni during reunion weekend who sat in their old classrooms in Aldrich Hall to listen to professors talk about their current research.  The “students” included John Kelefatas of the Edna Clarke McConnell Foundation and Jim Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank, quietly sitting front and center in the worm deck.

c100 conference

A stately Dr. Kissinger addresses the black tie crowd of predominantly Chinese Americans at the Committee of 100 dinner.  Present included Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang, new Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, and architect Maya Lin.

Union Square was overrun with suits and ties as the unexpected good weather lured JPMorgan Healthcare conference participants outside.  Despite the overall economic bleakness, the Westin St. Francis was a hub of activity with many familiar faces, as well as refugees from other sectors looking to make the crossover into life sciences.