CHICAGO - While attendees at last year's convention in Atlanta were feeling the full brunt of the global economic recession, arrivals at the McCormick Place convention center were greeting this year's Biotechnology Industry Organization meeting with much more optimism, no doubt helped by the mainstream media, which has been posting a flurry of recent stories predicting an economic recovery.

Energy seemed high Monday as attendees began finding their way around the convention center with conference bags slung over their shoulders - backpacks this year (surely for carrying convenience in case conference-goers wish to break up their meeting schedules with a stroll around the scenic Lake Michigan shoreline and nearby Grant Park).

It was a very different mood from last year's meeting, which followed only a few months after the funereal-like 2009 J.P. Morgan conference and found company execs and investors still walking around a little shell-shocked, anxiously looking for any good news among tales of rampant restructurings and scarce funding options.

The picture looked so bleak, in fact, that some, like Ocera Therapeutics Inc. President and CEO Laurent Fischer, didn't even attend BIO in Atlanta. "Last year was all about conserving cash and getting through the nuclear storm," he said.

And this year? "I think we're really starting to see a much more optimistic mood," Fischer told BioWorld Today. "That's been reflected in the discussions we've had with existing and prospective investors."

He's not alone in his optimism. In recent days, a number of promising headlines have appeared, and results of several surveys, including one by the National Association for Business Economics, have indicated that the slumping global economy might well be on the way to recovery.

"I definitely think things are improving," said Bassil Dahiyat, president and CEO of antibody firm Xencor Inc., of Monrovia, Calif. "I think we're seeing a general upward trend, or at least a halting of the downward trend."

Dahiyat cautioned that "the story's still not written" in terms of venture capital and public markets. But "at least there's actual daylight."

According to BioWorld, overall money raised in the first quarter totaled $3.5 billion, well above the $2.4 billion reported in the first quarter of 2009. While the flow of VC money has slowed in early 2010, this year has celebrated the re-opening of the initial public offering window, starting with the $216 million IPO from Cambridge, Mass.-based Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. in February, followed by initial offerings by Anthera Pharmaceuticals Inc. and AVEO Pharmaceuticals Inc. Though all priced below expectations, all have held steady or gained in share price since their Nasdaq debuts. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 4, 2010, March 2, 2010, and March 15, 2010.)

But lack of funding wasn't the only issue last year. Symphogen A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, managed to pull in $44 million privately to fund work on a polyclonal antibody for cancer thanks to its long-term investors. "But we had hoped in the past year that we could have done some collaborations," said CEO Kirsten Drejer.

Partnering levels dropped way off during the first three quarters of 2009, though a fourth-quarter surge in deal-making improved the year's overall numbers a bit. Drejer attributed the drop in biotech deals in part to the spate of mega-mergers - Pfizer Inc. merging with Wyeth in a $68 billion deal, Merck & Co. Inc. acquiring Schering-Plough Corp. for $41.1 billion and Roche AG buying out its minority shares in biotech giant Genentech Inc. for $46.8 billion. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 27, 2009, March 10, 2009, and March 13, 2009.)

Distracted by the tasks of integrating two large pharma operations, those firms might not have spent too much time looking at opportunities at smaller biotechs.

"There's only so much one company can accomplish," Drejer said. "I hope this will change now, and we start to see more energy and interest" in the biotech sector. Symphogen is in Chicago looking to meet potential partners for its antibody platform, which is designed to create mixtures of antibodies targeting infectious disease and oncology. The firm has one oncology program, for instance, targeting EGF1 receptors. "And, of course, we have a platform that can be used against targets [belonging to] other companies," she added.

BIO also is a networking event for Xencor, which boasts an early stage pipeline of antibodies against cancer and autoimmune diseases, and for San Diego-based Ocera as well.

Ocera's Fischer said he has a number of partnering discussions planned and is looking at the meeting to help gauge the mood of investors. The firm currently awaits Phase IIb data with spherical carbon adsorbent candidate AST-120 in hepatic encephalopathy, and if those results are good, "we might consider tapping into the IPO market or seeking a partnership," he said. Overall, the feeling at BIO is a positive one, though firms are still cautious moving forward. "We're still careful about how we spend money," Fischer said. "But I just came out of a board meeting where I suggested that we spend more aggressively" on advancing the pipeline. "That's not something we would have done last year."