Biotech Firms Run Away After Industry Party With Topless Dancers
- Event echoes 2016 J.P. Morgan event that hired paid models
- Continued sponsorship is not an option, one company says
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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Biotechnology and pharma companies scrambled to distance themselves from an industry party where topless dancers’ bodies were painted with sponsor logos.
Corporate sponsors of the event threatened to pull their backing after learning from attendees about the near-nudity. Photos provided by attendees of the June 6 party show a dancer clad only in a flower crown, boots, pasties and a bikini bottom with the name of Selexis SA, a Swiss biotech company, painted on her right thigh. Another firm’s name, Alpha Blue Ocean, was inscribed on her stomach. While held in Boston concurrently with the annual meeting of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the party is unaffiliated with the trade group.