DUSSELDORF, Germany - About 1,900 biotech industry executives gathered here at the Congress Center on the banks of the Rhine for the 12th annual BIO-Europe International Partnering Conference.

The gathering is larger by 400 people than last year's event in Dresden - a jump of 27 percent - and there are delegations from 10 countries. Two hundred attendees traveled from Asia alone. Before the meeting had even started, more than 6,100 meetings had been scheduled.

Beyond the sit-downs and mingling, the conference also allows registrants to take stock of the sector, and snippets from the first day show an industry undergoing change.

Monday's news that Abbott Laboratories is buying Kos Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $3.7 billion is a reminder that pharma is starved for pipeline fodder. There is a palpable buzz of excitement among biotech executives these days, as they sit and stare at the massive premiums being paid by pharma to snap up hot firms. Licensing activity is humming, too, with preclinical programs sometimes fetching deals with half-billion-dollar potential.

In a morning panel session, Rüdiger Herrmann, partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw's Frankfurt, Germany, office, pointed out that were 684 pharmaceutical agreements hammered out around the world in 2005, and so far the industry is "on pace" for 2006.

Regarding financing, the initial public offering window is open but not providing the traditional exit it once did. Due to a varying definition of biotech, tabulations of priced IPOs fluctuate, but Herrmann reported 13 IPOs in the U.S. in 2005 and 23 in Europe. Annette Grimaldi, managing director at Jefferies & Co. Inc.'s Healthcare Investment Banking Group, reported figures showing that since the IPO window eased back open near the end of 2003, 63 firms have gone public - seven squirmed through before 2003 ended, another 27 in 2004, 14 last year and 15 so far in 2006.

Grimaldi pointed out that those 63 firms have priced 25 percent to 30 percent lower than the anticipated filing range, with a pre-money average valuation of $180 million. Not to mention that about half the companies that have gotten through have traded down and stayed there.

Add to that volatile mix big pharma's ample stocks of cash, and what results is the recent string of merger and acquisition activity. With Amgen Inc. willing to pay $2.2 billion for Abgenix Inc., and Merck and Co. Inc. coughing up $1.1 billion for Sirna Therapeutics Inc. (a panel moderator suggested that buyout could be the highest-valued deal "per employee" in biotech history), most investors wanting an exit are pushing companies toward pharma's welcoming arms.

But a buyout wasn't an option when Ablynx NV and Wyeth sat down to talk. News broke Monday of their deal to discover, develop and commercialize Ablynx's Nanobodies directed at the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) protein and its receptors. Eva-Lotta Allan, chief business officer at Ablynx, said the agreement started as a licensing deal and ended that way

While the company decided "a while back" to partner the Nanobodies targeting TNF-α, and "the interest was high" from suitors, she told BioWorld Today that "Ablynx is not for sale today." She noted the €40 million the firm raised in a Series C round in August, which will fuel the company to mid-2008.

The arrangement gives Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth, of Madison, N.J., exclusive worldwide rights to Nanobodies targeting TNF-α. Ablynx receives an undisclosed initial payment, research support and milestone payments, all of which could add up to $212.5 million, if "multiple products" are commercialized. Ablynx, of Ghent, Belgium, also would receive royalties.

Ablynx's Nanobodies are meant to have the target specificity and low inherent toxicity of antibodies, but also be able to inhibit enzymes and access receptor clefts the way small molecules can. It allows a "rapid progression from research to development," Allan said, and Nanobodies have a chance to become the second generation of the world's Enbrels, Remicades and Humiras.

Ablynx chose not to keep a commercialization option with the TNF-α program, but it might on others. For now, though, it will focus on its acute thrombosis program, which should push a product into Phase I development next year. If things progress well, the company would be "clearly be prepared for an IPO in 18 months," she said, assuming that the markets allow it and investors give a fair valuation.

The conference ends Wednesday.