It was Pro-curo Software Ltd.’s first exhibition with ELRIG and it was actually the first exhibition, since our formation in January this year, we had attended as a stand-alone company. Having had some experience of ELRIG while working at Brady I knew the focused market and type of delegate. To be honest we had not set ourselves high expectations, due to the fact that Pro-curo was mostly aimed at academic life science researches not commercial organisations and high throughput laboratories.

We were privileged to be selected to attend the event in the innovation zone, which allows smaller companies a presence at these types of events. The booth was 2 meters by 1 meter, and our table showcased the Pro-curo software on a  27" monitor, we were also lucky enough to have been loaned a Ziath single vial barcode reader which was displayed alongside our iPad. The iPad was demonstrating our latest mobile offering Pro-curo Remote which is a system to allow users to begin working on a PC and then continue on their tablet. We also had a very fetching display of bright orange stress balls, which I had lovingly arranged into three piles to represent our Pro-curo logo (and no they definitely were not oranges, but surprising how many people thought they were).

We ended the first exhibition day in very high spirits, there had been a much higher level of interest in Pro-curo from the delegates than we expected and we had picked up several really positive leads, but the day wasn't over. In addition to our exhibition booth we were also invited to participate in the Dragon's Den event on the Tuesday evening, based on the popular TV series this was a new feature introduced by ELRIG for Drug Discovery 2012. I would need to pitch our company’s latest product offering; Pro-curo Remote and feel the wrath of the Dragon’s (see "Entering the Dragon's Den" Blog). It was a long but thoroughly enjoyable day and after having a lot of positive enquires from the delegates and surviving the Dragons den experience, we were excited about returning the next day.

The second day started off just as well as the first, and the interest levels were again very high. Around midday we had been invited to present a vendor snapshot to support the compound management track. I was asked to give a ten minute overview of Pro-curo and everything we could offer, as some of you will know I can talk for hours and hours about Pro-curo so obviously I overran. The level of interest was good and even though we had other vendors within the snapshot session that offered sample inventory systems, it was clear that we had something different and in most cases complimentary.

The rest of the second day flew by, with lots more enquires but also lots of conversations with our fellow vendors. We talked about partnerships, dynamics of the market, my Dragon’s Den experience and the success of the exhibition overall. I had the opportunity to spend some time with our flatbed scanner partner Neil Benn @ Ziath Ltd, who actually encouraged us to attend this event and I was also able to reconnect with an old colleague, Paul Carter from The Scott Partnership, who I used to spend considerable time (and money) with.

In summary the event was excellent for us and very well organized. Thanks go to Jackie Howard from ELRIG who looked after us impeccably, I'm certain that our exhibition experience was so enjoyable and successful due to Jackie's support.

 

Acknowledgments to:

 

Jackie Howard   -ELRIG,  www.elrig.org

Paul Carter                          -The Scott Partnership, www.scottpr.com

Neil Benn                            -Ziath Ltd, www.ziath.com

 

Dragon’s:

 

Penny Attridge                 Investment Director at SPARK

Sanj Kumar                         Senior VP & General Manager, Europe at DiscoveRx

Graeme Daniels                Sales Director at Cytocentrics Bioscience GmbH

Lorenz Mayr                       Vice President & Global Head, Reagents & Assay Development AZ