Opening Remarks from Scott Pantel at LSI USA '23

Transcription

Scott Pantel  0:06  

It's so good to be here. Last year, we were handing out sunblock at this time. And this year, we're handing out umbrellas. So we're gonna be fluid. We're gonna, we're gonna keep moving. And it's gonna be an amazing event. I think part of our sales strategy to the east coast and Midwest folks about guaranteeing sunshine, we're probably gonna back off on that. Yesterday, I, I had lunch with a good friend of mine, and I was doing some more complaining about the weather, and maybe a little anxiety and worry about the weather. And the lunch was with Manny Villafana. And many of you may know Manny, He is the eternal entrepreneur and the eternal optimist. And I'm sure he's in one of these rooms here, wherever he is, give him a give him a pat on the back. But he reminded me during this lunch that number one, it's going to be okay, because we have such great people, our industry, they're not here for the weather. And the second thing he reminded me of was that actually, this is a good thing, because now I have everybody captive, they have nowhere to go. And deals have to happen. So we're fully expecting that. The weather's changed, but some things haven't. And what hasn't changed is that I truly believe that we have the greatest people in the industry here gathered for this event, we have a tremendous amount of innovative innovation that we're going to see over the course of the next three days, we have panel sessions that are covering a broad range of topics from finance, leadership, innovation, reimbursement, and no doubt, the threads of those conversations will be taking a twist based on some of the things that our industry is going through right now. We have more capital than ever, in attendance at an LSI meeting. And we expect good things to happen. As a result of that. Four and a half years ago, we didn't have this event to come to. And here we are. And the growth of this event truly is a credit to our industry, it's a credit to the people that are here, all of you, not only in this track, but in the other tracks that show up for an event like this. The 300 presentations that you're going to see over the course of the next three days. Again, they're covering a wide range of topics. But the thing that has been fascinating to me was a report that I got this morning, and it was from my team, I asked them how many partnering meetings do we have lined up and they gave me a number just over 3200. And I immediately said, There's no way guys, it's not mathematically possible. We don't have enough tables that are not that many meetings, they went back and they came in, they said, Look, don't forget, we have an overflow option in the app. And so I would ask everybody, as you're walking around this event, over the course of the next three days, when you see people in the nooks and crannies of this hotel, in the restaurants in different areas, those are meetings that are set up through the app with all sides of the table that are represented here. And I got to think that good things are gonna happen with the innovators that we have here, the capital that's here and all the service companies that are doing the other things to support our industry. But for us, it is not just about doing more and having more numbers, we really want to do better. And a part of that for us is raising the bar on who we bring to the meeting, raising the bar on the companies that we'll be presenting. And that's why our alumni last year raised $1.4 billion. And we expect more great things to happen for the alumni that will come out of this meeting. It's also why we've adopted this unpanel philosophy, which you're going to hear about over the course of the meeting and to us on panel means It means challenging each other it means asking the questions that people are thinking about that but maybe are afraid to say. So I would encourage everybody to get involved. We've encouraged our our panelists to really challenge each other respectfully. But let's come out of this event stronger and smarter than ever. We also decided this year that we were going to pick a fight. And we were going to pick a pick a fight that meant a lot to us. And this year that fight is against Alzheimer's. So I would like to ask I think I see Paula here. I'd like to ask Paula Rutledge to stand up just for a minute. And Paula is an example of leadership in our industry. Paul is an amazing business person. But she's also somebody that cares very much about what it is that we all do. A Lena Alexander last night talked about what we do, it matters. It really does matter. And so Paula has been raising her hand and stepping up for the last couple of years now and saying Scott, we got to do something about this. So it's an honor. First of all, let's give Paul a round of applause. I want to thank Paula for her leadership. And I want to make a commitment to you, Paul right now that beyond what we're doing at this meeting, which is putting a spotlight on the companies that are solving problems in Alzheimer's, and brain health, and forcing these these investors to take a closer look at these opportunities. Beyond that, we're going to carry this over to LSI Barcelona, so this will you have my commitment LSIs commitment that this is going to be a starting point for something much bigger. You also have my commitment that you're going to walk away with a check from LSI to get this thing going. So if anybody wants to rally around this, please find Paula. Just look for the hat. All right, just look for the hat. Thank you, Paula, one more time. Okay, it's been a tough month for us. We all know that there's absolutely going to be a new thread of conversation that's happening over the course of this meeting. We're not going to have all the answers this banking crisis has affected us right now. There's some uncertainty. There's a lot of there's a lot of ideas out there that I think we all need to talk about no doubt, we're going to talk about some of the big issues. We're not going to leave this event with all the answers. But I know we're going to leave a little smarter, and we're definitely going to leave a little closer. So let's embrace this thing. Let's lean in. Let's come up with solution. And let's keep me keep moving our industry forward. As I lean again, Aileen pointed out last night, what we're doing matters. And because what we're doing matters, we can get through anything we will we got through the pandemic together, we're gonna get through this thing together. The last thing I want to say before I introduce our keynote is I need to give some credit to my team, I get a lot of the credit for the work that they do. Okay, they deserve the credit. So please, I have an amazing team here. They're here to serve, they want this thing to be perfect for you. I can't tell you how many times we agonized over the weather report over the last month because we want this thing to be perfect. But it's all going to work out. Come by the desk, give them a high five, thank them and tell them what you need, because they want to make sure this is a perfect event for you. So my final comment is just a challenge to everybody. Let's partner. Let's collaborate. Let's make this world a healthier and happier place. We can do this together. And again, I want to welcome everybody for being here. Thank you very much. Okay, we're gonna kick this thing off. It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Atul Butte. He's our keynote speaker, Atul as a founder. He's a scientist and engineer and innovator. He's got multiple exits. He is the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg distinguished professor and Inaugural Director of the Baker Computational Health Sciences Institute. He's going to talk about a lot of things today, but he's going to talk about data. He's going to get us inspired, and it's such an honor to have him here, Atul. Let's give it up for Atul.