LSN 2.0 – Continue to Build an Open Innovation Ecosystem

By Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Science Nation, Creator of the RESI Conference Series

There is a large community of startup companies that have left academia with a tech transfer license, or created a startup outside academia, and landed at one of the 1000+ global tech hubs that Life Science Nation (LSN) tracks and engages with as part of a global innovation ecosystem. There are regional tech hubs, accelerators, incubators, non-profits, universities, hospitals, and clinics that help the estimated 10,000 startups along their entrepreneurship journey. Typically, when these startups seek Seed, Series A, and Series B capital investors and licensing partners, they find their way into the LSN Innovation Ecosystem and onto the LSN Global Partnering Campaign platform, where LSN can match them with hundreds of investors and licensing partners that are a fit for them.

LSN curates two databases, one of the technology startups across drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health (the 4D’s), and another which tracks the investors and licensing partners who seek these startups.  The buy or sell sides of the early-stage life science arena can come to LSN and get a list of companies that fit their partnering mandates. LSN produces 5 Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) partnering events around the globe annually. This enables the startups and their prospective partners to be matched up, engage in dialogue, and foster relationships that hopefully lead to transactions.

I have learned that being able to match is one thing, but connecting an investor or licensing partner with a startup doesn’t automatically equate to a match that ends in a transaction.  It’s basically step 1 in a long process that is an arduous numbers game, and many startups lack the experience with the relationship components around sales, marketing, and the BD side that are necessary to close a deal.

Every early-stage deal comes down to a scientist/founder, the startup team, the buy-side team, and the relationship that transpires over 9-18 months involving the due diligence process. In the early stage, much attention is paid to vetting the team and technology, understanding their past evolution, how they adjusted and pivoted, and the milestones and data accumulated along the journey.  Team, milestone map, present, and future data are the themes leading to a transaction scenario.

Preparing and educating the scientist/founder is part of the solution to crossing into the business arena. I have written a book on the subject and created 16 classes on designing and executing a global partnering campaign.

LSN products fit into a global theme of an open global partnering platform. LSN does as good as the top accelerators who sell their entrepreneurial education and their investor networks, but unlike LSN, they take an equity piece from a startup for resources they provide. LSN pioneered an open innovation ecosystem, and we estimate that we have helped 400 startups raise over $5B.