Next Phase Newsletter

By Nono Hu, Senior Manager, Branding & Messaging, LSN

The Team at LSN is pleased to announce that for our first RESI Conference on the West Coast we will be bringing together over 500 investors, scientist-entrepreneurs, and strategic partners from around the world for a full day of partnering, panels and workshops.

RESI 4 provides a venue for all early stage scientist-entrepreneurs to connect with early stage investors. RESI’s goal is to facilitate dialogues that open compelling relationships between entrepreneurs and investors.  These relationships lead to capital allocations which will move science along. In partnership with AdvaMed, the sponsor of RESI’s medtech investor panel track, RESI strengthens its reach into the world of medtech startups and investors. In addition to the new Medtech panel track, RESI 4 will also have a Biotech panel track, hands-on workshops, the RESI Innovation Challenge, and the RESI Partnering Forum.

We’re excited to add so much new content to RESI 4. Check out the RESI Program Guide to learn more! We hope to see you at the Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel in San Francisco on January 13, 2015.

By Tom Crosby, RESI Conference Manager, LSN

With the first West Coast RESI right around the corner, we’re pleased to announce the remaining five investor panels: Corporate Venture Capital, Emerging Market Investors, Medical Device Strategics, Orphan & Rare Disease Investors, and Clinical Phase I & Phase II. LSN is thrilled both with the world-class speakers and the content that they will be delivering to a record RESI audience of 500+ on January 13th. If you have yet to take a look at the first West Coast RESI’s panels, they’re now all available online. We hope that you’ll be taking in some of this fantastic content along with us next week — if not, look for the recap videos shortly following the conference, and we’ll see you at the next RESI!

Corporate Venture Capital

Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) and Independent Venture Capital are two separate beasts – with different tactics and motivations – and as a fundraising entrepreneur, they should be looked at as such. Learn from the experts in Corporate Venture Capital as to why the life science industry is currently seeing a push for external innovation. As CVC funds continue to grow in size and numbers, it is increasingly important for entrepreneurs to understand these entities as a critical source of potential investment.

The RESI Conference session will feature representatives from some major players in the industry. This is a must attend, one-of-a-kind panel that will provide tremendous insight for the scientist entrepreneur.

Moderated by Graeme Martin, President & CEO of Takeda Ventures the audience will hear from:

Priyanka Rohatgi, Director, Baxter Ventures

Tetsuro Iwata, Senior Manager, MP Healthcare Venture Management

Barbara Dalton, Vice President, Pfizer Venture Investments

Jason Hafler, Director of Investments, Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures

Sofie Qiao, Managing Director, WuXi Venture Fund

Panelists will answer questions regarding the strategic and financial motivations that drive their investment thesis and how they differ from independent venture capital. The session will also focus on the individual investment preferences of each representative on the panel. What does their portfolio look like today? What is the best way for early stage entrepreneurs to get on their radar screens? All this and more will be answered on Jan. 13^th.

Emerging Market Investors

With the growth of emerging markets creating wealth for their inhabitants, many of these countries, including China, Russia and India are looking to put that capital to work into globally-based investments in the life science field. These regions also represent massive and growing markets for many technologies that are approved or in development in other places in the world. This panel aims to shed light not only on how to go about reaching out and forming relationships with investors from these regions, but will also offer insight into how to bring an emerging market angle into your commercialization, distribution, and manufacturing strategy.

Moderated by Pushpa Vijayaraghavan, Vice President of Sathguru the audience will hear from:

Anton Gopka, CEO, General Partner, ATEM Capital

Jean Yao, Managing Partner, Med Qiao Group

Judith Li, Principal, Lilly Asia Ventures

Haolin Sung, Director of Direct Investment, Diamond BioFund

Panelists will discuss what the investment landscape looks like within in their geographic regions and networks. How do you start a dialogue with an emerging market investor? How do cultural barriers affect the process? What types and stages of opportunities are these firms most interested in? What is the best way to position an opportunity to them? These questions and more will be covered on January 13^th.

Medical Device Strategics

Large medical device manufacturers and distributors – like their large pharma cousins – have increasingly been looking externally for sources of innovation.  To help RESI attendees better understand what these giants are looking for, and how to go about getting a technology in front of them, LSN has assembled a panel of 5 top-tier strategic players in the medical device space.

Moderated by Paul Grand, the Managing Director of RCT Ventures the audience will hear from:

Albert Lauritano, Director, Strategic Technology Partnerships, Becton Dickinson

Conrad Wang, Senior Director, Corporate Development, Medtronic

Evan Norton, Divisional Vice President, Venture Investments, Abbott Ventures

Greg Fleming, Investment Director, ALIAD

As an entrepreneur in the medtech space, it is crucial to be able to grasp the motives and inner workings of these organizations to understand how a mutually beneficial strategic relationship is formed. This session will discuss the various technology areas, stages and geographies that these groups are currently interested in. How are they going about sourcing external innovation? What do they see for the future of the industry of the next 5 years? Come ask and hear from these top executives directly.

Orphan and Rare Disease Investors

In the United States, the orphan disease space has gained significant interest from the investment community – this is due to the expedited regulatory approval process, combined with the lack of current treatment options that address many of these uncommon conditions. RESI brings together veterans in the orphan disease space to compare and contrast the strategies and motivations of different investors in the field.

Moderated by Mark Day, Senior Director Corporate Development, at Alexion the audience will hear from:

Art Pappas, Partner, Chiesi Ventures

Chris Adams, Founder & CEO, Cydan

Debra Miller, Founder, CureDuchenne

Vinzenz Ploerer, President & CEO, Brace Pharmaceuticals

Panelists will introduce and cover the areas of the orphan disease field they are most involved with and interested in. What stage and level of data are they looking for prior to making an allocation? What is the best way to present an orphan opportunity to a potential investor? The session will outline how orphan disease opportunities are evaluated – and valued – differently than non-orphan technologies. What is their outlook for investment and scientific advancement for these niche diseases going forward?

Clinical Phase I & Phase II

For many investors, in-human data is strongly preferred – if not required – prior to investment. For this panel, LSN brought together a mix of 5 investors interested in making investments into technologies in the first phases of clinical trials, aiming to give the audience a window into how their firms operate and what they are looking for.

Moderated by Neil Littman, Business Development Officer of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, The audience will here from:

Daniel O’Mahony, Partner, Seroba Kernel Life Sciences

Lisa Rhoads, Managing Director, Easton Capital

Mike Dybbs, Principal, New Leaf Venture Partners

Sam Hall, Principal, Apple Tree Partners

If you have entered into clinical trials (or are preparing to), this session will help you to understand the keys to positioning your opportunity at this stage and how best to approach investors in the initial outreach. From safety to early efficacy data, learn what these investors value most in a potential investment — and what the red flags that turn them away may be.