Join Sano Shimoda, BioScience Securities, for The Final Frontier: Where Are We Headed on November 15 at the 2006 Agribusiness Forum at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in Kansas City. Shimoda will provide his “crystal ball” look at the forces reshaping agriculture.

The economic potential derived from BioInnovation at the plant/agriculture interface has dramatically expanded in response to growing recognition of new developing BioBased solutions to meet three growing, major, long-term challenges facing the global economy.

(1)Energy/Raw Materials – The global outlook for cost competitive renewable BioBased fuels and raw materials has dramatically expanded with the escalating ramp-up in hydrocarbon values, tied to structural changes in the global supply/demand for crude oil, combined with growing national security of supply concerns. While the economics of both BioEthanol and BioDiesel are being subsidized globally, the real challenge is to reduce costs and create market based economics.

(2)Industrial/Environmental – Demand for economically justifiable, renewable, BioBased products is expected to grow due to corporate, governmental, and public concerns over the direct and indirect costs of environmental degradation of natural resource development, combined with the escalating costs of conventional industrial processes and products.

(3)Nutrition/Health – Escalating demand for nutrition-enhanced foods, as well as the potential to enhance nutritional components, are expected to dramatically expand in response to growing consumer demand; a transformation in health care mindsets; and business models that focus on preventative health care and insurance-based incentive systems.

In addition, there is the potential for pharmaceutical companies to place renewed emphasis on the development and marketing of science-based nutritional products that integrate into “wellness solutions.” This expected broadening focus is partially a response to the continued deterioration in conventional pharmaceutical R&D productivity, government pressures on pharmaceutical pricing, as well as growing global generic competition. More importantly, the key driver will be growth opportunities to market complete “Wellness Systems” (preventative health products, including nutritionals, and conventional pharmaceuticals) to the health care system, as well as respond to growing consumer awareness of the validity of preventative health solutions.

The ability of biotechnology-driven, renewable, plant-based solutions to meet these growing global strategic challenges will catalyze growing market acceptance for the use of a wide range of biotechnologies and related technologies to enhance plants and agricultural crops. In addition, it is likely that technology adoption over the next 5-10 years will accelerate in response to growing consumer and government acceptance, reflecting the demonstration of real tangible benefits. Governments are expected to be a major driving force, due to the expected positive impact on national economic/social/consumer priorities, as well as enhanced global competitive position.

BioScience Securities is a strategic corporate advisory and investment-banking firm founded in 1994 to focus solely on the companies and industry sectors that are on the front line of the biotechnology revolution applied to plants/agricultural crops, on a very broad basis, as we move towards a BioEconomy. A highly focused, knowledge-driven firm, BioScience Securities singular concentration stems from the belief that a wide range of industries will form new corporate relationships with agriculture via technological, product, and market-driven linkages.

Sano M. Shimoda, President and Founder of BioScience Securities, has over 30 years of experience on Wall Street, as an analyst and investment banker, specializing in the agricultural biotechnology, agricultural chemical, agriculture, and basic chemical industries.  An equity analyst by training, Mr. Shimoda followed the ag chemical and chemical industries at Banker’s Trust, The First Boston Corporation, and Anantha Raman & Company, and the agricultural biotechnology and environmental services industries at Montgomery Securities.

Mr. Shimoda co-founded Anantha Raman & Company, Inc., a brokerage, institutional research, and investment banking firm in New Jersey in the mid-1980’s that specialized in the agricultural chemical and chemical industries.

Sano earned an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and B.S. in Business Administration (magna cum laude) from Lehigh University.

If you would like to attend the Agribusiness Forum, register on-line now at http://nama.org/forum/register.htm. 

For more information on the Forum sessions and our speakers, visit, http://nama.org/forum/index.html.