Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association - West Regional Branch (SAPA-WEST) was founded in 1998 and is currently the West Regional Branch of SAPA, which was founded in 1993 and is now headquartered in the greater New York area. Our goal is to serve both Chinese-heritage and American pharmaceutical professionals, who are interested in establishing scientific and business relationships with China in the health-care industry. Our missions are to foster personal and professional career development of our members and to promote science, technology and business information exchange and collaborations between China and the U.S. in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field.

       SAPA-West now has more than 300 members throughout the Bay Area and other Western regions such as Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Nevada. Members are from biopharmaceutical companies and universities such as Alza, Amgen, Axys, Bayer, Berlex, Chiron, Genentech, Immunex, Roche Bioscience, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCSF and Univ. of the Pacific. The focus of SAPA-West will be on biopharmaceutical science and technology.

        SAPA-West has successfully hosted two annual conferences at the South San Francisco Conference Center. Our first annual conference "BioPharma 2000: Meet the Challenges" was held on August 7, 1999. More than 300 people came from local and Southern California participated the conference. Our second annual conference "March into the New Millennium" was held on July 30, 2000. Again, 300-400 participants enjoyed the conference. We are now preparing for the third annual conference to be held at the South San Francisco Conference Center on July 28, 2001.

       The conference program will be out soon. SAPA-West has also organized symposiums "Biotechnology Pipeline Workshop series" to review and discuss hot biotech topics with our members. So far, two workshops "Genomics Leading the Way" and "Monoclonal Antibody" were held at the Chiron Auditorium on May 6, 2000 and November 4, 200, respectively. More than 100 members from the Bay Area attended each of the workshops. The third in the series "Discover Small Molecule Drugs in Genomic Era" will be held at the Chiron Auditorium on March 24, 2001. The fourth one is under design for the end of this year.

       SAPA-West hosted and participated many receptions to welcome delegations from China. Our members also visited China and presented in local seminars and conferences. Here at the Bay Area, we also sponsored and co-sponsored with local Chinese organizations social events to celebrate the Chinese New Year and other holidays. SAPA-West has become an established professional organization for Chinese and American pharmaceutical professionals in the West Coast. We will continue our effort to serve our members and fulfill our missions.

       More information and activities of SAPA-West and SAPA can be found at web sites: http://www.sapa-west.org and http://www.sapaweb.org.

• Serve both Chinese-heritage and American pharmaceutical professionals
• Bridge the healthcare industry of US with that of China

• Promote science, technology and business information exchange and collaborations between China and the U.S. in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field
• Foster personal and professional career development of our members

• SAPA is a US national non-profit organization founded in 1993 with its headquarters at Nanuet, New York. SAPA is dedicated to serve the pharmaceutical sciences, promote the vitality of the pharmaceutical sciences and scientists, and represent scientific interests within academia, industry, government, and other private and public institutions. SAPA has established 5 chapters in US with over 2,000 members. SAPA has become a mainstream professional association and won the recognition and respect of the US biotechnology and pharmaceutical community.