Reception Part of Largest Biotech Industry Event ever in China

Womble Carlyle was the exclusive law firm sponsor of a dinner reception highlighting Maryland’s biotech industry on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 in the Maryland Center China’s (MCC) reception room in downtown Shanghai. The dinner reception was timed to coincide with Biotech China (www.biotech-china.com/en/), the largest biotech industry event ever in China. Since its founding ten years ago, Biotech China remains the only annual international exhibition in China focusing on biomedicine, gene-technology and life sciences.

Over fifty Chinese biotech and pharmaceutical industry leaders attended the invite-only dinner reception, which featured three presentations: an overview of Maryland’s biotech industry by MCC Chairman Ning Shao, a company’s perspective on Maryland’s biotech industry from Battelle’s Senior Vice President for Biotherapeutics Dr. David Robinson and a presentation by Dr. Zhao Guoping, a director of Shanghai Biochip Company, considered one of the leading Chinese biotech companies, on the state of China’s biotech industry.

Womble Carlyle was invited to serve as exclusive law firm host of the dinner reception, because of the Firm’s strong life sciences practice, concentrated in the mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S., and its relationships in China established, in part, during the Firm's two-week business trip to China in March. During the tour, a nine-member delegation met with Chinese business leaders and officials representing U.S.-owned companies in China, as well as Chinese companies operating in the United States.

The itinerary included meetings with the Ningbo Foreign Affairs Office, the American Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Commercial Service, the Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone, the Jiangsu Province’s Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery & Electronic Products.As a result of the meeting with the Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery & Electronic Products, Womble Carlyle was asked to be the exclusive host of a private dinner on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce's Rooftop Pavilion in downtown Atlanta. The dinner welcomed China's Vice Minister of Commerce, Madam Ma Xiuhong, who was leading a delegation of over 100 governmental and business leaders on a multi-city tour for a buying mission to purchase U.S. products and services.