SAN DIEGO – Overseen as usual by Douglas MacDougall, president of MacDougall Biomedical Communications, one of the traditionally livelier sessions at the BIO International Convention again fulfilled its promising title, "Son of a Pitch: Do You Have the Talent to Engage Investors?"

The workshop, designed to coach CEOs, business development leaders and others on developing their elevator speeches and pleas for funding, gave audience members 30 seconds each to speak their stuff to a panel of would-be funders that included Ed Torres, managing director of Lilly Ventures; Caleb Winder, managing director of Excel Venture Management; and Ken Haas, partner with Abingworth Management Inc.

Two winners were selected from the lineup at the end of the session, and each was given a one-on-one meeting with the panelist of his or her choice.

"If it's 'completely efficacious and has zero toxicity,' I'm guessing it's water probably," remarked Haas in response to one pitch-maker's bid. "But it's still interesting."

MacDougall took the opening to stress credibility when approaching venture capitalists.

"I have a saying that 99 percent of the world is judged by earnings and revenues," he said. "The biotech industry is judged by what you promise and what you deliver."

"That said, a little bit of hype is fine," Haas put in. "We expect folks to be passionate and biased about their own businesses."

MacDougall responded that "passion is great, but if you say you're going to do a phase III clinical trial in six weeks," then you'd better do it.

Lilly's Torres came out even more skeptical. "To me, if somebody says, 'No side effects,' they are not getting a second phone call," he said. "You need to have some customer intimacy to understand or guess where you cross the line between credible and passionate. It sounds like that line isn't the same for everybody."

At that point, the pitch-maker felt compelled to point out the difference between side effects and toxicity.

"Let's learn something from this," Torres replied. "I made a mistake in listening, but you wouldn't have gotten a second phone call. You have to own that. The cost for an incorrect no by a VC is almost not measurable. The cost of a no to you is huge. Keep that in mind, because that should hopefully keep you disciplined in every interaction."

"The words that you use are important," Haas pointed out, responding favorably to another pitch-maker's use of the phrase "refreshingly practical" when describing her law firm's approach to client services. "When you hear words like 'disruptive,' things like that, they're kind of old words that pass through one's brain."

MacDougall described helping companies formulate their brands. "We take them off-site for three or four days with their team" and guide them to formulate several sentences that "stay the same," at least for a couple of years. "If you change your story every time something happens or is different with your company, people will never know who you are," he said.

Haas also stressed familiarity with the zones where VCs tend to be wary. "In the venture world, there are particular indications that are just really tough for us," he said. "Diagnostics is one. Wound care is another. It's important if you're pitching that to understand why it's difficult for us, and hit those on the head." Askers should "figure out is this a hot area for venture or is this a cold area for venture, and if it's cold, how do I reverse that in 30 seconds, or at least say, 'Hey, we've solved the problem you guys are worried about.'"

Torres noted that "almost all of us are of the opinion that a very common mistake is not focusing on an objective for that specific interaction. You all work very hard on what you're doing, and sometimes what happens is [that] you want to convey 10 years of blood, sweat and tears in 30 seconds, but that doesn't accomplish your objective. Your objective in the elevator speech is to get someone to lean forward and have a second conversation."

Sorting through the information offered ahead of time is crucial, too, Torres said. "Do you guys care about the intellectual property [IP] status in a 30-second pitch? I do not. I recognize that IP is huge, seminal and the only way to monetize your great inventions, but we all assume you have that covered."

Abingworth's Haas recommended pitch-makers focus on "what's the hook, what's new, what's interesting about it?" – and then joked, "even if it's not true." It's vital not only to remember to include the "ask" in the pitch but also to explain what the money will be used for, Winder from Excel added, and "what the value is of getting that done."

The goal, MacDougall said, is to "give them enough information so that they can come back and tell you what they're looking for."