Next Phase Newsletter

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

The secret is out, and LSN sees firsthand that the Southeastern states have been an under served nascent marketplace for discovering early-stage technology assets. Investors have told me that “it’s booming in the South,” with highly competitive technology assets at more reasonable valuations, making for a dynamic marketplace for identifying and investing in early-stage companies across drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health.

Over the last six months, I have become familiar with the seven southeast states (GA, VA, NC, SC, AL, TN, and FL) partnered with LSN as co-developers of the RESI South March 25-27th event in Atlanta. A common theme is running through this multi-state alliance: each state seems to have broken the code that to create a life science innovation economy, you need the buy-in and deep participation from academia, industry, and government. In this cross-sector leadership dynamic, the magic happens with a concentration of industry players, a highly educated workforce, and a supportive environment for startups and established companies where innovation can flourish.

Each state in the southeast alliance checks off all the boxes with a preponderance of diverse clusters throughout their region, a high concentration of BioTech, MedTech, and HealthCare companies, and strong support from hospitals, colleges, and research institutions contribute to its dynamic life sciences landscape.

I have witnessed firsthand how each state has a unique and dynamic ecosystem of government, academic, and industry stakeholders working together. Each state’s life sciences industry is not exclusively based in one metro area. There are multiple clusters around the state. This geographical diversity has contributed to the industry’s dynamism.

The last puzzle piece is investment and incentives, and we are seeing a combination of grants, loans, capital infrastructure investments, tax incentives, and workforce programs. These investments have created thousands of jobs and propelled the development of new therapies, devices, and scientific advancements that improve patient health and well-being in the Southeast region and worldwide.

LSN has an investor and licensing partner network of over four thousand entities that leverage LSN and the RESI conference series to identify and invest in companies for their portfolios and product pipelines. RESI South is currently seeing a brisk signup rate and is expecting 300 investors and licensing partners to participate in the one-day face-to-face meeting in Atlanta and the two-day virtual global meeting on March 25- 27.

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

By helping startups develop compelling narratives for their fundraising campaigns and facilitating strategic partnerships through its extensive network, LSN plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between academia and industry. Life Science Nation has developed a set of products and services that help startups navigate the fundraising chasm and find the right partners to aid them in their journey to commercialization. These challenges include:

1. Navigating a New Field: Moving from academia to industry requires adapting to a new environment, understanding the rules, and building a professional network within the life science industry.
2. Acquiring New Skillsets: Scientists-Entrepreneurs need to be open to learning or having staff that understand Sales, Marketing, and Business Development.
3. Fundraising, Licensing, and Collaboration Trends: Early-stage life science companies face the challenge of staying informed about investment trends and securing funding, especially in the face of broader market challenges and uncertainties.
4. Competition and Innovation: Rapid innovation and competition characterize the life science industry. To remain competitive, startups must stay abreast of the latest scientific advancements and disruptive technologies.
5. Networking and Collaboration: Building a strong network of collaborators, investors, and partners is essential for early-stage life science companies. This includes understanding the dynamics of potential partnerships and effectively engaging with investors and partners.
6. Market Dynamics and Global Expansion: Understanding market dynamics, both locally and globally, is crucial for startups. They must also develop a strategic plan for global expansion and navigate the complexities of launching and executing a global campaign and roadshow.
7. Fostering Ongoing Partnerships: Successful partnerships require ongoing effort and a dedicated plan to maintain a consistent pipeline of partner meetings, even as these meetings ebb and flow over time.

Contrary to the popular assumption that science is enough, and focusing on that will lead to successful fundraising, making the transition from a scientist to an entrepreneur requires flexibility, passion, and a lot of drive and determination. A scientist has to transform and adapt, learning new skill sets and entering a new world, but those that want it can be extremely successful. Let us help you on that journey.

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

The 800:3 Rule: It’s a Number Game

A fundamental principle governing this ecosystem is the 800:3 rule, which underscores the need for a robust pipeline of opportunities to yield tangible results. Whether you’re a startup seeking investment or an early-stage fund scouting for technology assets, the journey involves identifying and vetting a vast pool of potential targets to unearth the right partners. This rule, ingrained in the fabric of the industry, highlights the importance of persistence and strategic targeting in navigating the complex landscape of early-stage life science ventures. It is all about getting out of your region and entering the global marketplace. Whether you are funding a startup or a fund manager, you are playing a numbers game. That is, you need to get a list of partners that potentially fit your initiative criteria, and then you need to canvas that list and have an adroit process in place to qualify or dismiss the target. It’s a tedious, resource-intensive process where activities ebb and flow over the campaign’s life cycle. Preparing for and executing a partnering campaign, and understanding all the challenges are crucial for success, and underestimating and being unprepared can increase the chances of failure. This is one of the reasons why there is a 90% failure rate with startups in the life science arena.

I will give two examples of this rule, one that applies to a startup seeking investors and licensing partners and the other to a fund seeking assets to enhance their portfolio. The 800:3 rule suggests that a company needs to identify and vet around 800 potential partners or investor targets to secure three deals. The startup needs to find a lead investor and several co-investors to form a syndicate for the round. LSN’s partnering database, which is sold to startup CEOs, will routinely generate 800 potential targets based on a startup’s stage of development and product. This metric underscores the importance of casting a wide net and engaging with numerous potential global partners or investors to secure successful opportunities. For startups, underestimating the amount of effort and time it takes to secure funding and partnerships is a common mistake. The second example is of an early-stage fund seeking technology assets. When LSN interviews investors and licensing partners as part of the curation of our partnering database, we typically discuss the metrics in finding and vetting startup candidates for investment. Repeatedly, we hear the same metrics where, over a year, a fund will see 800 or so startups and invest in only a handful. This highlights another challenge startups face: they have the need to stand out from the hundreds of other startups vying for funds – how do you become one of the 3?

The Buy-and-Sell Side: Understanding the Dynamics

At the heart of the early-stage life science arena lies the interaction between the sell side, represented by nascent startups emerging from academia, and the buy side, comprising a diverse array of investors and licensing partners. According to estimates from LSN, the global ecosystem boasts around twelve to fifteen thousand nascent startups, each vying for attention and support from the buy side. The buy side encompasses a broad spectrum of investors, from angels and family offices to Big Pharma and MedTech, to VC and PE and government agencies. With specific mandates or opportunistic agendas driving their portfolio and product pipeline investment decisions, these entities play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of early-stage startups. The life science partnering ecosystem revolves around the stage of development and product of the startup, and the vetting of a founder, team, and technology can take anywhere from 9 to 18 months on average. LSN estimates about five thousand active early-stage capital investors and licensing partners comprising ten categories covering seed rounds, up to two million, series A rounds, 2-10 million, and series B rounds, 10-50 million.

Challenges and Opportunities

For startups venturing into this arena, the road ahead is fraught with challenges and uncertainties. From navigating the transition from academia to industry to acquiring new skill sets in sales and marketing, the learning curve is steep and unforgiving. Furthermore, staying abreast of fundraising trends, fostering collaborations, and navigating global expansion pose additional hurdles for these budding entrepreneurs. Startup CEOs must build a strong network of collaborators, understand market dynamics, and harness the power of strategic partnerships.

The key is to get out there and speak to as many people as possible. Whether or not this leads to a fundraising opportunity, making connections and getting feedback will play a critical role in moving a company forward. Remember that it is a numbers game, and the more relationships you have, the more you are stacking the odds in your favor.

By Alexander Vassallo, Manager of Business Development West Coast (US), LSN

Launching and successfully growing a life science company is an extremely challenging endeavor, but if done successfully, can foster new paradigms of healthcare and lead to healthier lives for individuals around the globe. It is for this reason that Life Science Nation (LSN), the industry leader in connecting early-stage life science firms with capital investors and strategic partners, has developed a series of new educational courses, ranging from half a day to three days, for aspiring scientist-entrepreneurs and fundraising executives.

Launching and Funding Startups: Seed to Series B is a free half-day course designed to introduce early-stage life science executives to the tools and tips they will need to successfully launch a company and begin to interact with your target partners and investors. The course will cover several fundamental entrepreneurial concepts such as how to perform entrepreneurial due diligence, branding and messaging and the importance of telling a cogent company story through multiple modalities, and the 10 myths of fundraising. This course can be complemented by an optional afternoon session (bringing the course to a full day) where LSN staff will work directly with companies to help review their non-confidential materials, perform a competitive landscape analysis, and generate a global target list of investors.

Mapping the Landscape of Strategic Partners for Your Startup is a paid one-day course for fundraising executives who have launched an early-stage life science firm and will actively be seeking partners for capital (Seed to Series B), joint product collaboration, or licensing distribution deals. The course will cover a tactical to-do list for the early-stage entrepreneur and participants will be equipped with the skills and tools necessary to successfully undertake a global fundraising campaign. The course will finish with a Tales from the Road (TFTR) panel that will involve seasoned entrepreneurs in the LSN network sharing their experiences of their fundraising journeys and launching life science companies. The price of this course is $1,400 per company and includes two spots per company (one business and one science executive).

Preparing for Your Global Fundraising Roadshow is a paid two-day course that will cover an extensive dive into developing a professional set of marketing, non-confidential materials that the early-stage life science executive can bring to any investor meeting and partnering conference during their fundraising campaign: tagline, elevator pitch, executive summary, one-page data sheet, and pitch deck. Participants will also be taught how to research global investors, collaborators, and licensing partners who are a right fit for your company’s technology and stage of development and how to interact with your target partners. A third day of early-stage life science strategics can be added to the course (bringing it to a full three days) to further prepare participants for their fundraising journeys. Navigating the pitfalls that commonly catch first-time CEOs off-guard, creating a network of global alliances through social and business media, and mapping the competitive global landscape to elucidate the value of your startup are important themes that will be covered. The three-day version of the Preparing for Your Global Fundraising Roadshow course will conclude with a live Shark Tank to active investor judges. The price of the two-day course is $3,500, and the price of the three-day course is $4,500, with two spots per company for each course (one business and one science executive).

If you’re interested in learning more and participating in a course, please feel free to reach out to Alexander Vassallo at a.vassallo@lifesciencenation.com to schedule a call and explore the new range of LSN entrepreneurial education courses.

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

The coaching and mentoring universe is divided between those who think that selling, cold calling, and follow-ups are dirty words. They’re likely to proselytize that if you do not have a warm referral, you are wasting your time. The other camp (where I live) supports finding partners based on the fit of product and stage of development and reaching out until you book that meeting or are told, “No.” Life Science Nation created the RESI conference to be a vehicle to make this happen, based on fit – the other “warm referral.”

Opportunity abounds in the golden age of life science with new tools and technologies adding to the dynamic, but we’re also seeing startups fail faster, and therefore pivot, restart, and draw a straighter line to viable targets and products. I hear frequently that the magic combination is being smart and lucky, but somewhere in the middle of being smart and lucky is determination, commitment to hard, tedious work, and navigating the path to a new product. This is the case for founders taking their companies from regional to global and finding investors and licensing partners that are a fit.

RESI is a conference designed for these entrepreneurs to flourish. It’s frustrating to see partnering events with little vetted investors or licensing partners, but rather services providers wanting to charge for their partnering services. These other partnering events are more of a social gathering for reconnecting business acquaintances, which makes it a challenge in choosing the right event for you. None of this is inherently wrong, but the current need is for real vetted partners who are looking to fulfil investment mandates and product pipelines.

The early-stage marketplace is heating up with growing buy-side players seeking these startups. Join us for Digital RESI, June 7-9 and mark your calendar for the first in-person RESI since 2020 – RESI Boston, September 21-22.

By Rory McCann, Marketing Manager & Conference Producer, LSN

Launching a successful startup requires data. Life science entrepreneurs know the value of data when pitching to investors, but those investor meetings don’t happen without a well-curated dataset and global target list (GTL). In a recent conversation with Life Science Nation (LSN) business development manager Alex Vassallo, we discussed how fundraising founders can source a GTL of investors and strategic partners who are a fit for their product and stage of development using the LSN Investor Database, and how to use this tool in conjunction with tried-and-true principles of successful partnering.

Contact us to learn more about the LSN Investor Database, view a demo, and discuss how our products and services can help your early-stage fundraise.

Want to learn more? The Business Development team at Life Science Nation is available to answer questions and share additional details to help you meet your partnership goals!
International	East Coast (USA) & China	Midwest (USA) & Canada	West Coast  (USA)
Greg Mannix Vice President International Business Development Book a Meeting Email Me	Candice He VP, Business Development & Global Investment Strategist Book a Meeting Email Me	Antoinette Lowre Manager of Business Development Book a Meeting Email Me	Alexander Vassallo Manager of Business Development Book a Meeting Email Me

By Alexander Vassallo, Manager of Business Development West Coast (US), LSN

“If I told you to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, would you do it?”

This was not the first question that the Fulbright scholars attending the Boston seminar were expecting to receive, but after a 3-day entrepreneurial masterclass workshop delivered by Life Science Nation (LSN), it was a question all the scholars had an answer to. Starting a company is one of the most difficult tasks an entrepreneur can undertake, however, with the right mindset and genuine entrepreneurial agency, your chances of success can greatly improve.

The Fulbright Commission invited LSN to help equip the next generation of aspiring scientist-entrepreneurs with some of the skills they would need to be industry leaders in the life science arena. Led by LSN Founder and CEO, Dennis Ford, alongside the VP of Business Development, Candice He, and the BD Manager for the West Coast, Alex Vassallo, the Boston Fulbright seminar, April 21-23, was an engaging experience that this year’s cohort of scholars would not soon forget.

Participants were given an opportunity to explore and examine the process of taking life-saving inventions from ideation and creation stages to the public market. The life science domain is unique in that a startup entity’s journey starts with academic tech transfer agreements, which lead to regional and national government non-dilutive funding followed by capital investors and licensing partners. This entrepreneurial masterclass highlighted the core elements of launching an early-stage company’s branding and messaging in conjunction with a global partnering campaign. The theme of the workshop was finding your entrepreneurial voice, developing a compelling narrative, and then clearly telling the story of team, product, company milestones, and partnering strategy.

The 3-day entrepreneurial workshop concluded with an impressive pitch competition that highlighted not only the talent and entrepreneurial agency that the Fulbright scholars possessed, but that the key take-home messages of the masterclass had been well integrated and understood. We can expect many of these students to be industry leaders in the coming years and were honored to be a part of their journey. Whilst starting a company in many ways is comparable to jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, the scholars of the Fulbright Commission are taking the plunge.