April 9, 2025

Best Practices for a Public Biotech’s Investor and Analyst Day

Investor and Analyst Days (sometimes called Investor Days, sometimes called Analyst Days, and not to be confused with the Analyst Day you have prior to your IPO while still privately-owned) are important tools to educate the market about a biotech’s performance, prospects, or perhaps the importance of an upcoming milestone.

Used correctly they can alert the market to unappreciated value within a company, give clarity to commercial plans or market opportunities, or guide expectations about near term clinical readouts.

They typically last two to three hours, are invariably held in-person in New York City, cost between $50,000-$100,000, and take a ton of time and effort to organize. Which leads me to an important question: Are you sure you want to do this?

If the answer is yes, read on for some key tips that my team and I have picked up from decades of organizing these kinds of events. Let’s start with the most important.

Have something new to say.

By holding an Investor and Analyst Day, you’re “forcing” your covering analysts to forgo the other 30-40 companies they cover, leave their Manhattan office, and listen to you and your team for 2-3 hours during their trading day. They will want to come away from your event with content for a note (or flash note) that makes the investment of their time worthwhile.

Standing in front of them and presenting no new information will not cut it. Simply espousing how undervalued management believes the company’s stock is, will not cut it. Using the same corporate deck that you’ve been presenting for months will not cut it. Nor will simply hiring a graphic artist to give your deck a touch-up.   

Instead, use your Investor and Analyst Day to provide investors and analysts with new insights into your prospective drugs.

Perhaps share with them preclinical data they haven’t seen before. Show them data for some secondary or exploratory endpoints that haven’t yet been published from a trial where you’ve already announced topline data. Have you commissioned some market research? Share it. Do you have a new drug development candidate? Announce it. Have you just finalized the trial design for the next stage of your drug’s advancement? Talk about it. Do you have a commercialization plan to share for the first time? Do it.

Analysts should come out of your Investor and Analyst Day more convinced that your existing drug candidates will succeed, or that you have more shots on goal because of new programs you’ve announced.

Remember: An Investor and Analyst Day is not in-and-of-itself a catalyst.

Don’t equate hosting a two- or three-hour meeting in NYC with actual milestones like Phase 2 or 3 data, an in- or out-licensing, an NDA or BLA submission, or a drug approval.

An Investor and Analyst Day can help shine light on your stock’s value, but unless you are making a major announcement during the meeting, it should not be expected to move your share price. Principally, this is because everyone attending your meeting is likely to already be supportive: They are usually either existing shareholders or supportive analysts with Buy ratings and price targets typically well in excess of where your stock is currently trading.

Should your event be in-person or virtual?

Since the COVID pandemic, we have all gotten used to Zoom and Teams meetings. Often, with so many fund managers working remotely part- or full-time, non-deal roadshows are actually better attended when held virtually.

This is not the same for Investor and Analyst Days. 

Investor and Analyst Days thrive through their tangibility. Nothing builds confidence more than meeting the C-suite in person, meeting real doctors who have treated real patients with the company’s drug (or drug candidate), and possibly even holding a drug’s physical packaging or aid for administration.

Moreover, if you only hold your Investor and Analyst Day virtually, you can be certain that the window showing your webcast on a virtual attendee’s computer will be competing with at least four or five others.

Can Investor and Analyst Days be held outside of New York City?

They can. But your physical attendance is likely to suffer.

Revance Therapeutics was a long-time client of mine (prior to its acquisition) that invested millions of dollars on a state-of-the-art training and education center in Nashville, TN – where they trained and entertained dermatologists. For them it was cheaper to host the event in their auditorium there, and afforded visitors an experience far and above that of a New York hotel.  

Generally however, hosting an Investor and Analyst Day in Midtown Manhattan – within walking distance of all the major banks and funds – is the best way to fill the meeting room, since it keeps people away from their desks for the least amount of time, and with the least inconvenience.

Pick a convenient time.

• Do not host your Investor and Analyst Day during earnings season.
• Do not host an event that competes with a healthcare investor conference (e.g. J.P. Morgan’s, TD Cowen’s or Jefferies’ (although holding an event in the same city the day before might work out nicely)).
• Do not host your Investor and Analyst Day during a related scientific conference, nor during the opening days of a major unrelated scientific conference.

Instead, do host your event on a weekday, either first thing in the morning or last thing in the afternoon. And remember that NASDAQ and the NYSE trade from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm ET, so by starting early or late you can avoid keeping people away from their desks for too long while stocks  are trading.

• Verify well in advance (via email or replies to a “Save The Date” announcement) that all of your analysts are able to attend and that there are no other significant conflicts you may have missed.
• Make your meeting work-friendly by peppering the agenda with bio-breaks and supplying beverages and snacks to help extend your guests’ attention spans.  
• Finally, I’ve always found that chairs laid out in classroom style mean people can take notes efficiently, while still keeping an eye on the markets/email. Also, providing free, ample Wi-Fi is essential if you expect your guests to remain for the whole program.

Bring the doctors, leave the patients at home.

Analysts and investors love hearing from, and being able to question doctors, with real-world patient experience. They will want to hear stories of how your drug compares to the current treatment paradigm. Will it affect their practice’s profitability? How easy is it to administer? What kinds of patients would doctors imagine switching to your drug?

The Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) you bring along to your Investor and Analyst Day need to be able to answer questions like these. As such, it’s best that they’ve been involved in one of your clinical trials. Clearly, they cannot speak to the efficacy of your drug – nor should they – (they could well be blinded, and even if they weren’t, they would only have seen a subset of enrolled patients) – but they can speak anecdotally about how the drug handles, etc.

Make sure any invited KOLs are sufficiently prepped not to attempt to answer questions the company might be sensitive to – drug price commonly being the most sensitive issue. Pitfalls such as these can be avoided by having the CEO act as ringmaster during any kind of open Q&A segment.

Every now and then I get a biotech who wants to bring a patient to an Investor and Analyst Day. It typically isn’t the best use of time. Patients participating in trials are typically ill, and this alone can be distracting. Furthermore, a treating physician has more insight into multiple patients’ treatment and can therefore talk with greater breadth about patient experience.

Be mindful of those listening to the webcast.

Investor and Analyst Day webcasts are typically audio-only (since that’s the easier and cheaper option). This means that presenters should not use laser pointers when presenting slides, and that every part of the presentation (and all Q&A) needs to be picked up by a microphone to avoid alienating the virtual audience (who can at least match and often outnumber those in physical attendance).

To simplify your Q&A sessions, think about limiting questions to those in the room and those that table a question in advance by email.

Meet the night before your Investor and Analyst Day.

Dinner and a read-through the night before often encourages rehearsal-shy executives to get in the right headspace. Rehearsals are often best located at your lawyer’s, banker’s or accountant’s New York City office, which needs to be a private space given the sensitivity of the material to be presented.  

Finally… Go with the flow.

No one else apart from those within the company knows how your Investor and Analyst Day was meant to go. There will always be technical difficulties. Brush any aside and present with confidence. Repeat your key messages again and again until they are etched into the back of your attendees’ brains. Exude charm, as psychologists have proven that we tend to trust people we like more than people we don’t.

Think about a NASDAQ or NYSE bell ringing, if appropriate.

Lastly, if you didn’t get the chance to ring an opening or closing bell around the time of your IPO (or even if you did), think about whether asking for a bell ringing might be appropriate while your entire C-suite is in New York.

Note that tagging on a non-deal roadshow to your Investor and Analyst Day is not appropriate since this will end up cannibalizing your own event.