Over 15,000 industry and academic biotech leaders will gather in Washington, D.C., in the coming week for one of the industry’s biggest conferences, but some are using their time to visit Baltimore and see what Maryland has to offer.

The University of Maryland, Baltimoreplans to host businessmen from around the world this weekend at its BioPark, the school’s biotechnology research park on Baltimore’s west side. The goal is to tout the project as the Biotechnology Industry Organization ’s BIO conference takes place in Washington.

University of Maryland hopes to use the opportunities the conference provides — including scheduled tours with foreign groups and exhibiting time — to raise cash for its tech transfer program and garner sponsorships for research projects and clinical trials.

In conjunction with the Association of University Research Parks’ annual BIOPARKS conference in D.C. this weekend, University of Maryland will host 25 of the conference’s attendees — parks management, developers and university economic development types from around the world — for a tour.

During the week, University of Maryland plans to connect with companies that may be interested, or could help draw business to the state.

Following BIO, a group traveling from Singapore will visit the BioPark on July 1 as well. The university will bring others to Baltimore during the week if necessary to show off the project.

The BioPark initiative was launched in 2003, and since then has created over 550 jobs. Its 10-acre campus features two commercial research buildings and a new State of Maryland Forensic Medical Center totaling 470,000 square feet.

Once complete, the University of Maryland BioPark is expected to include 12 buildings with 1.8 million square feet of research and lab space.