Next Phase Newsletter

By Gregory Mannix, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

Are you looking to raise a private financing round or find a strategic partner for your life science startup?  The 27^th Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Partnering Conference is offering an opportunity to present your firm at our San Francisco event taking place on January 14^th, 2020 event taking place at the Marines’ Memorial Club and Hotel near Union Square. We expect 500+ early stage investors to attend RESI San Francisco 2020, making this a unique opportunity to get your company’s message out.

Featured Pitch Sessions

Early Stage firms seeking licensing deals or Seed, Angel, Series A or B funding can secure a 15-minute presentation slot at the upcoming RESI Partnering Conference.  With RESI’s focused audience of life science investors, and a 1:1 ratio of investors to startups, presenting at RESI is a unique opportunity to get in front of early stage partners. RESI will host over 500 global early stage investors ranging from family offices and angels to strategic Pharma and MedTech players. Presenting at RESI gives companies an opportunity to build their profile.

If your firm is interested in presenting in the Early Stage Company Pitch Sessions please click below.  You will be required to submit a two-page executive summary and 10-12 page pitch deck with your application.

Deadline for applications December 12^th 2019.

Fee structure

• RESI registration fee per attendee (register here)
• Presentation fee per company:  $1,500 

Who should present?

Any life science company that is developing products in the Drugs, Devices, Diagnostics or Digital Health arena and is seeking licensing or investment.

Presentation Details:

• Early Stage companies are invited to request a 15-minute company presentation.
• Presenting companies will be featured in the LSN Newsletter, RESI website and in the RESI conference program guide.

What about the RESI Innovation Challenge?

Those who are familiar with RESI know of the RESI Innovation Challenge, a competition for companies on the day of the conference, where they present posters in the exhibit hall and compete for ‘investments’ of ‘RESI Cash’ from attendees, with the most successful winning prizes at the end of the day. The RESI Innovation Challenge is unique in that it involves a rigorous merit-based selection process that assesses the ‘investability’ of a company based on the innovativeness of their technology, the stage of development and potential market size, to name a few of the many criteria. The Innovation Challenge has always been extremely selective, with many more applying than are accepted to participate. Participation in the Innovation Challenge for selected companies is at no extra cost, to ensure that the selective nature of the Innovation Challenge remains solely merit based (apply here). However, we have found that a large number of companies would like the opportunity to present their companies to the broad audience in attendance at RESI. To accommodate them, we are launching the RESI Featured Company Pitch Sessions.

By Karen Deyo, Senior Investor Research Analyst, LSN

We are excited to announce the finalists in the Innovation Challenge at both RESI Shanghai, taking place on Tuesday, Nov. 12^th and RESI Taipei, taking place on Thursday, Nov. 14^th. These companies will present posters in the Exhibit Hall, where RESI attendees can see their innovative technologies and ‘invest’ their ‘RESI cash’ tokens to vote for their favorite companies. The three companies with the most ‘invested’ by the end of the day will win prizes.

In addition to presenting posters, for the first time, each company will also get an opportunity to pitch to a panel of investors and industry experts, who will ask questions and provide feedback. Below are the pitching schedules for the selected companies – make sure to stop by and watch these amazing companies pitch!

RESI Shanghai Innovation & Pitch Challenge

RESI Taipei Innovation & Pitch Challenge

By Candice He, Global Investment Strategist, LSN

After supporting the RESI Conference Series with delegates and speakers for many years, VIVA Biotech has become a Gold Sponsor of RESI Shanghai and RESI San Francisco.  At RESI, you will be able to meet with VIVA’s delegation of elite portfolio companies, and with top expert speakers representing VIVA at RESI’s panels and pitch sessions. You will also have the opportunity to meet with VIVA during RESI’s cocktail party, where VIVA will present the awards for the RESI Innovation Challenge!  Finally, RESI Shanghai attendees will also have the opportunity to take a tour of VIVA Biotech’s incubator.  We hope you will join us and our sponsors and partners at RESI Shanghai.

About VIVA Biotech

Viva Biotech’s mission is to become a cradle for innovative biotechnology companies around the world. Viva Biotech has developed a scalable business model combing the conventional cash-for-service (CFS) model and its unique equity-for-service (EFS) model. Under the CFS model, the Group provides structure-based drug discovery services to its biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide for their pre-clinical stage innovative drug development, covering the full spectrum of the customers’ needs for early stage drug discovery, including target protein expression and structure research, hit screening, lead optimization and drug candidate determination. Viva Biotech also provides drug discovery and incubation services to biotechnology start-up companies with high potential under its EFS model. As of June 30, 2019, Viva Biotech had provided drug discovery services to 388 biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide, worked on over 1,000 independent drug targets, delivered over 11,000 independent protein structures, and incubated a total of 37 early stage R&D projects.

Supporting RESI Conferences for years, VIVA Biotech will be the Innovation Challenge Gold Sponsor for RESI Shanghai on Nov. 12^th and RESI San Francisco on Nov. 14^th

By Gregory Mannix, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

That’s right – RESI Asia will, for the first time, allow participants to present their companies four times over the course of two days. By applying to the Innovation Challenge for RESI Asia, companies will get the chance to present a poster in the exhibition hall AND pitch to a panel of investors at both the Shanghai RESI conference on November 12^th and the Taipei RESI conference on November 14^th. That is an incredible opportunity to get visibility for your company and meet with many investors and strategics from China, Asia-Pacific and beyond.

We know from experience that companies that compete as finalists in the Innovation Challenge at a RESI conference get more visibility and more one-on-one meetings with investors. The opportunity this November, with two conferences back-to-back in two hot life science hubs in Asia, is UNPRECEDENTED.

As always, participating in the RESI Innovation Challenge carries no additional cost for companies. You’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to gain!

By Claire Jeong, Director of Research, Asia BD, LSN

After another successful RESI Boston last week, we are excited to talk about our inaugural RESI Asia events, RESI Shanghai (November 12^th) and RESI Taipei (November 14^th)!

Life Science Nation would like to invite all early-stage life science companies across the globe to apply for the RESI Asia Innovation Challenge through our online portal. Selected finalists will present a poster showcasing their company and technology at our exhibition hall on the day of RESI. All participants will be presented with “RESI Cash” to “invest” in their favorite technologies. This time, we have another special opportunity for the Innovation Challenge finalists!

For the very first time, our RESI Asia conferences will feature a full day track dedicated to pitch sessions, during which companies will present a short pitch in front of a panel of active investor judges. At both RESI Shanghai and RESI Taipei, companies who are selected for the Innovation Challenge will also be granted an opportunity to be part of a pitch session. In combination, the Innovation Challenge and pitch sessions will provide unparalleled exposure to participating early-stage companies who are seeking to meet and grow relationships with new and existing investors for their fundraising efforts.

To shed some light on what the Innovation Challenge is like from the participating company’s point of view, the 1^st place winner of the Innovation Challenge at RESI Boston, Zepto Life Technology, shared some comments about their experience at RESI. Jason Payne, Director of Business Development & Investor Relations at Zepto, said, “The RESI Innovation Challenge provided a truly excellent opportunity for my team to showcase Zepto’s pioneering GMR-based “lab-on-a-chip” biotechnology, ahead of our firm’s upcoming $30 million Series A round in 1Q 2020. RESI’s team of well-practiced professionals equipped Zepto with expert guidance throughout each step of the process — from our team’s initial creation of Zepto’s poster through the entire RESI conference’s celebration of Zepto’s eventual 1st Place finish. Moreover, the RESI conference’s excellent web-based scheduling system allowed Zepto to launch our firm’s Series A outreach in style, introducing my team to numerous potential investors with a simple click of my mouse. Thanks to RESI, Zepto’s fundraising process is off to a wonderful start!”

Carmit Levy, CEO of ResMetrix Medical, 3^rd place winner in the Innovation Challenge at RESI Boston, added, “The RESI Innovation Challenge provided a great opportunity for Resmetrix to present our unique wearable system for accurately monitoring lung disease patients at home and alert for early signs of deterioration. It opened the possibility to meet other participants that were interested to hear more about Resmetrix technology on top of the meetings that we set before with investors, through the wonderful meetup system on RESI website. Winning 3^rd place in RESI challenge also exposed Resmetrix to additional potential investors. Thank you RESI for this great opportunity!”

I’ve also interviewed Soundable Health’s CEO Catherine Song, who won 1^st place at the RESI Philadelphia Innovation Challenge in June (you can read it here).

Applying for the Innovation Challenge is free – get started on your application now!

RESI ASIA Innovation Challenge Deadline is Oct. 11th, 2019

By Lucy Parkinson, VP of Investor Research, LSN

Yesterday’s RESI event brought together over 350 investors and over 350 startups in Boston’s Back Bay.  There were so many meetings that RESI Partnering filled to capacity.  LSN is delighted to have facilitated so many new connections, and we hope that these relationships continue to grow in the follow-up.

The RESI Innovation Challenge showcased 38 emerging startups in the biotech, medtech, diagnostics and digital health fields.  All the competitors brought novel, exciting discoveries to the technology showcase, selected by LSN’s Expert System and scientific review team.  RESI’s attendees chose the winners by using their RESI Cash tokens to cast votes for their favorite participants.  We would like to introduce you all to the 3 top placed companies, as selected by the RESI ecosystem.  Thank you, all, for taking part by casting your votes.

First Place: Zepto Life Technologies

Zepto, an in-vitro diagnostics company, features uniquely-accurate and multiplex-ready “lab-on-a-chip” technology – co-developed with the Mayo Clinic – to improve patient outcomes through superior assay performance at patients’ exact points of need (a $12B market). Zepto’s fully-automated lab-on-a-chip Immunoassay Platform can conveniently deliver “central lab-quality” performance almost anywhere. Initially, Zepto is working to equip ERs and ambulances with highly-sensitive Troponin assays, accelerating myocardial injury detection. Meanwhile, Zepto’s portable Liquid Biopsy Platform can detect 1% cancer gene mutation (eg. PIK3CA, EGFR, KRAS) and achieve unparalleled specificity of 99.9%+ in less than 2 hours. This can revolutionize the $6B tissue-based biopsy market. Zepto seeks $30M, primarily to launch the Immunoassay Platform with D-Dimer assays and complete PIK3CA-focused product development on the Liquid Biopsy Platform.

YongYong Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder, Zepto Life Technologies

Second Place: BOYDSense

BOYDSense, Inc. is a medical technology company providing non-invasive and affordable tools for measuring critical biomarkers via exhaled breath. Breath-based metabolomics focuses on the capture, identification, and quantification of volatile organic compound (VOC) biomarker patterns in human breath and using them to diagnose and monitor chronic diseases, such as diabetes. BOYDSense’s first commercial product, the g-Sense Breath Meter, is a hand-held breath meter that can accurately predict blood glucose values from breath VOC’s. The g-Sense meter does not need consumables, is wirelessly enabled, has a companion mobile application and a public API. The device design is lifestyle-friendly, pocket-sized, with a seamless user experience, allowing consumers to frequently measure blood glucose without the typical barriers of cost, pain, or social stigma.

Bruno Thuillier, CEO, BOYDSense

Third Place: Resmetrix Medical

Respiratory diseases are leading causes of death and disability in the world. More than 250 million people suffer from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease (COPD) and 300 million from Asthma worldwide. Currently, respiratory deterioration is often detected too late, leading to sever exacerbation and complications, hospitalization and huge costs. Resmetrix is developing a wearable system (based on unique proprietary sensor built into a chest strap wirelessly connected to a smartphone app), that monitors at-risk respiratory patients in real-time, 24/7, anywhere, in any setting. Resmetrix system is the only system that detects small changes in a patient’s breathing pattern and provides immediate, early warning signs of deterioration in COPD patients at home, enable early window of intervention, early treatment and avoiding hospitalization.

Carmit Levy, Ph.D., CEO, Resmetrix Medical

RESI ASIA Innovation Challenge Deadline is Oct. 11th, 2019

By Karen Deyo, Senior Investor Research Analyst, LSN

Israel is frequently referred to as ‘The Startup Nation,’ with a lot of innovative technologies being developed in a multitude of sectors, including in healthcare. Over the past year, LSN has worked with the Israel Ministry of the Economy, the Israel Export Institute, the Israel Innovation Authority, the New England-Israel Business Council and several incubators and accelerators within Israel to bring these companies into the global RESI ecosystem.

In the 4 RESIs that have taken place so far in 2019, about 20 Israeli companies have been selected as finalists in the Innovation Challenge, with a few companies among the winners of these conferences. Yesterday, at RESI Boston, a group of these Israeli companies came to meet with the global investor attendees, including Novotalk, 1^st place winner at RESI SF, PhotoPill Medical, 2^nd place winner of RESI Europe, and Resmetrix, 3^rd place winner yesterday. We look forward to seeing many more exciting companies from Israel at future RESIs, and hope that they will be as successful as the companies that have attended so far!

Izik Itzhakov of AEYE Health | Zohar Beeri of Novotalk | Ram Ben-Yehuda of PhotoPill Medical | Sharon Ben-Yehuda of PhotoPill Medical | Carmit Levy of Resmetrix Medical | Karen Deyo, Senior Investor Research Analyst, Life Science Nation