Life Science Nation (LSN) Launches RESI Asia Japan

August 25, 2026August 26, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

KBIC, Title Sponsor of RESI Boston 2026 and RESI JPM 2027, Collaborates with LSN on RESI Asia Japan

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation (LSN)

Life Science Nation is launching RESI Asia Japan, a new conference created in collaboration with the Kobe Biomedical Innovation Cluster (KBIC), Japan’s largest biomedical cluster. The event opens April 13, 2027, at the ANA InterContinental Tokyo.

RESI Asia Japan is the culmination of a three-conference partnership, with KBIC a Title Sponsor of RESI Boston in September 2026 and RESI JPM in January 2027. Companies that attend in sequence gain three windows into the LSN network across seven months.

“Every great life science hub faces the same reality. The science is world-class, but the path from discovery to global capital remains a challenge. KBIC has done the hard part, with an elite science discovery engine. What we are building together is the bridge that carries that science into the global marketplace and carries the world’s capital and partners back to Japan.”

Dennis Ford

Founder and CEO, Life Science Nation

Why Japan matters to an early-stage company

Japan is one of the most valuable and least accessible opportunities in the industry. Takeda, Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo, Eisai, Chugai, and Ono are among the world’s most active licensors and acquirers of external innovation, and a Japan-rights deal is often early non-dilutive capital and a validation event. The PMDA offers one of the world’s most progressive routes for regenerative medicine and cell and gene therapy, where a product can earn conditional approval on demonstrated safety and probable benefit before full efficacy is proven. Japan also offers deep CRO and clinical trial capacity and is the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical market.

The obstacle is access. Arranging a first meeting with Japanese pharma, navigating PMDA, or finding the right partner is difficult from outside the region. That is what RESI Asia Japan is for.

Three challenges every life science hub shares

Every life science hub in the world faces the same three problems, no matter how strong its science.

Getting its regional assets into the global arena.
Bringing international players and stakeholders into its own region.
Getting regional and international investors to form syndicates together.

RESI was built to solve exactly these problems. The KBIC partnership puts all three to work at once.

Beyond the events, LSN and KBIC are working to strengthen the commercialization pathway for Japanese life science companies through entrepreneur education, company preparation, capital formation, and international business development.

About KBIC

KBIC brings together roughly 350 companies, research institutes, and specialized hospitals on Kobe’s Port Island, spanning regenerative medicine, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and digital health. It sits at the center of a country that leads the world in regenerative medicine and iPS cell science.

The Redefining Early-Stage Investments (RESI) Run

RESI Boston | September 2026 | The Westin Copley Place, Boston – Register Now

RESI JPM | January 2027 | San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Union Square – Register Now

RESI Asia Japan | April 2027 | ANA InterContinental Tokyo

Learn more about RESI at RESIConference.com.

Startups seeking Japan partnerships, global capital, and an APAC foothold should register for the run in sequence, starting with RESI Boston in September.

More details on registration, agenda, and participating companies will follow in the coming months.

Building the Innovation Bridge Between Japan and the World

August 25, 2026August 25, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Claire Jeong, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President of Investor Research, Asia BD, LSN

Japan has world-class science, deep pharmaceutical expertise, and a rich pipeline of emerging life science technology. It is now delivering an innovation bridge that connects that innovation to the global life science community.

At RESI Boston 2026, our 8th annual Global Family Office BioForum Luncheon will bring together international family offices for a private, invitation-only conversation about the emerging bridge between Japan and the rest of the world. I will be joined by Keiko Kobayashi of the Kobe Biomedical Innovation Cluster (KBIC) and Rick Berenson, Managing Director of Venzyme Catalyst.

KBIC is one of Japan’s largest life science clusters, and our work together is centered on three objectives: helping Japanese technology assets enter the global arena, bringing international investors and strategic partners closer to Japan’s innovation ecosystem, and fostering cross-border investment syndicates that connect Japanese and international investors around opportunities in both markets.

The pieces are coming together. KBIC brings the Japanese ecosystem, company pipeline, and government relationships. Venzyme Catalyst brings early-stage assessment, shaping, and de-risking. LSN brings commercialization preparation, RESI, BD Assist, and its global network of investors and licensing partners. Keiko will share what KBIC is building in Japan, while Rick and I will explain how the commercialization engine connects regional innovation to the global marketplace.

Then we will do what has made the BioForum work for eight years: get out of the way and let the room work. The real value is the conversation among family offices as they compare perspectives, share experiences, and build relationships with peers. Attendance is limited and by invitation only. Family offices interested in attending can reply to this newsletter or contact Life Science Nation to request an invitation.

Global Family Office BioForum Luncheon
Tuesday, September 22, 2026, 12:00 to 1:00 pm
Westin Copley Place, Boston
Private and invitation only

RSVP for GFOB Here

Featuring:

Dennis Ford

Founder of Life Science Nation, Creator of RESI, and Architect of LSN Labs

Rick Berenson

Managing Director, Venzyme Catalyst

Keiko Kobayashi

Business Strategies, Head of International Ecosystem Development, KBIC

Building the Future of Chronic Disease Care

August 25, 2026August 25, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Momo Yamamoto, Senior Investor Research Analyst, LSN

Chronic diseases represent one of healthcare’s greatest challenges and one of its largest opportunities for innovation. As the global burden of chronic conditions continues to grow, investors are looking for solutions that can improve outcomes, reduce long-term costs, and fundamentally change how patients manage their health.

At RESI Boston, the panel Building the Future of Chronic Disease Care: Innovation Across Therapeutics, Devices, and Digital Health will bring together investors to discuss where they see the most compelling opportunities across the chronic disease landscape.

The conversation will explore innovation across therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health, as well as the evolving reimbursement and adoption models that can determine whether a promising technology successfully reaches patients. Panelists will also share what they look for when evaluating early-stage companies, from clinical and commercial validation to differentiation, scalability, and a clear path to market.

Chronic Disease Panelists
Soyoung Park 1004 Venture Partners (Moderator)	Gopal Chopra Validare Capital	Navin Govind Evidence Ventures
Nune Martiros Paladin Capital Group	John Tremblay Launchpad Venture Group

For early-stage founders developing solutions for chronic disease, this session offers an opportunity to hear directly from investors about what is attracting capital today and what companies need to demonstrate to stand out in a large and increasingly competitive market.

Join the conversation at RESI Boston, September 22–23 at the Westin Copley Place, and connect with investors, strategic partners, and fellow innovators advancing the next generation of healthcare.

It Is Not the Pitch Deck Anymore. It Is the De-Risked Deck.

August 18, 2026August 18, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

A Boston Biotech Week note from Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO, Life Science Nation

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation (LSN)

Boston Biotech Week brings the whole industry into one city at once. Big stages, packed agendas, strategic executives, investors, and hundreds of emerging companies working the room. There is real value in all of it. But if you are an early-stage CEO trying to raise your next round, you have a narrower problem. You do not need to meet everybody. You need to meet the people who can actually fund you.

Over the last few years, I have watched the investor conversation change. The science is as strong as ever. What has changed is what happens after the science leaves the lab and somebody has to finance the long road to the clinic. Founders were taught to build a pitch deck: the unmet need, the science, the market, the team, the ask. There is nothing wrong with that formula, but it no longer answers the question an early-stage investor is actually asking: risk. What has been proven, what has not, where the company could fail, and what the next round actually retires. That is why the pitch deck is becoming something else. I call it the de-risked deck.

This matters because life science has a structural problem we do not talk about enough. We built an extraordinary discovery engine and pour billions into it, and it works. What we never built beside it, with the same discipline, is the commercialization engine. A scientist spends twenty years mastering a pathway and then is expected to run a company that demands regulatory strategy, clinical development, IP, reimbursement, capital formation, and partnering. That is a different profession, and we expect founders to learn it while keeping the company alive.

So too many companies start raising before anyone has put the asset through the full risk stack, and that gets expensive. A company can burn years and millions moving toward an IND only to find that a regulatory assumption was wrong or the IP is thinner than it looked. Problems that cost thousands to surface early cost millions once they are buried in the plan. The process should run the other way. Vet early. Find the risks while they are still cheap to address. Retire what you can, manage what you cannot, and build the financing strategy around the milestones that take those risks off the table. That is what makes a company legible to capital.

That is where RESI is different. In a week full of networking, RESI is built for one thing: the early-stage financing problem. By the time we open, roughly 400 international early-stage investors will be in the building, covering Seed up to two million, Series A up to ten million, and Series B up to fifty million. More than 200 investment firms have already registered. A founder does not come to RESI for another thousand names in a directory. They come to find the specific investors whose mandate fits their stage of development and product, and to get in front of them.

Investor Firms Exclusive to RESI Boston 2026

Two rooms make that sharper. The Global Family Office BioForum brings 40 family offices from around the world, patient private capital that is hard to reach, and this year they are taking partnering meetings alongside the forum. The Cross-Border Investor Luncheon puts international investors together with regional VCs, because a regional fund often has access to companies it cannot finance through multiple rounds, and an international fund has capital and reach but no visibility into the local ecosystem. Put them together, and you are not collecting contacts; you are building a syndicate.

None of this replaces the work. No conference makes an unprepared company fundable. The science has to stand up, the milestones have to make sense, and the CEO has to understand the risks well enough to have a conversation rather than deliver a presentation. When founders make that shift, it shows. FELIQS, one of our recent Innovator’s Pitch Challenge companies, told us RESI helped them sharpen how they communicated the clinical and commercial opportunity and opened the door to real financing discussions. The science had not changed. Their ability to make it legible to capital had.

The science is the reason a company exists. Making it financeable gives it a chance to survive.

LSN and RESI have been part of Boston Biotech Week since its inception. If you are an early-stage company looking for capital or licensing deals, RESI is the right room to be in. If you are there to shop for service providers, plenty of other rooms are built for that. RESI is built for matching partners and facilitating early-stage transactions.

Boston is our hometown, and this is where RESI shines. That is the de-risked deck, and this week, that is the conversation we want to have.

RESI Boston 2026 | September 22 to 23 | The Westin Copley Place, Boston
Virtual Partnering | September 25, 28 to 29

Inside the Pharma Partnering Playbook: How Early-Stage Innovation Gets on Big Pharma’s Radar

August 18, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Joey Wong, Director of Investor Research, Hong Kong BD, LSN

For early-stage life science companies, securing the attention of a pharmaceutical partner can be transformative. But with pharma teams evaluating a constant flow of new technologies, assets, and platforms, what makes an emerging company stand out, and what turns an initial conversation into a meaningful partnership?

At RESI Boston, the panel Inside the Pharma Partnering Playbook: How Early-Stage Innovation Gets on Big Pharma’s Radar will bring together experienced pharmaceutical business development and partnering professionals for a candid look at how large pharma companies identify, evaluate, and engage with external innovation.

As pharmaceutical companies increasingly look outside their own pipelines for promising science, partnerships are beginning earlier and take a wider variety of forms. Research collaborations, option-to-license agreements, licensing deals, and strategic investments can all provide pathways for startups to work with established pharmaceutical companies. For founders, understanding how these organizations approach external innovation can be critical to developing an effective partnering strategy.

The discussion will explore what initially puts an early-stage company on pharma’s radar, how teams assess scientific and strategic fit, and what founders should have in place before initiating a business development conversation. Panelists will also share perspectives on building relationships before a company reaches a major inflection point, navigating internal decision-making at large organizations, and positioning an opportunity so its value is clear to potential partners.

Pharma Partnering Panelists
Nikhil Mutyal AstraZeneca (Moderator)	Nimish Gupta Jazz Pharmaceuticals	Parthiban Rajasekaran Sanofi
Armin Rump Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co.	Andrew Thomson Ipsen SA

For entrepreneurs pursuing pharmaceutical partnerships, the session offers an opportunity to hear directly from the people on the other side of the partnering table. Attendees will leave with a stronger understanding of what pharma is looking for, how opportunities move through the evaluation process, and how early-stage companies can approach BD conversations with greater focus and preparation.

Join the discussion at RESI Boston on September 22 at 1:00 PM and gain an inside look at how promising innovation makes its way onto Big Pharma’s radar.

Register Free: Pre-RESI Biotech Forum, September 21

August 18, 2026August 18, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

Sougato-Das

LSN has always sought to offer value to the greater life science fund raising ecosystem by providing free educational material both via webinars and in-person seminars. To continue this tradition, RESI Boston, in partnership with Certara, is offering a free, in-person event in Boston on September 21 called the Biotech Forum.

The Biotech Forum is a strategic workshop designed for biotech executives, founders, and investors who want to sharpen their development plan, de-risk their program, and enter RESI, JPM 2027 and other fundraising meetings with clarity and confidence. In a single focused day, expert speakers will address the early-stage decisions that most often derail promising programs and show you how to avoid them before you step into critical partnering and investor conversations, including a dedicated session on how to prepare for, run, and follow up on your investor meetings.

The Biotech Forum will be catered with breakfast, lunch and snacks, and will be followed by a networking reception. If you are a biotech company, you can register here. This is a great opportunity not only to learn, but also to network with other ecosystem participants. We look forward to seeing you there.

More Investors. More Opportunities. More Momentum.

August 11, 2026August 11, 2026 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Claire Jeong, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President of Investor Research, Asia BD, LSN

Investor interest in RESI Boston is building quickly as the launch of the RESI partnering platform approaches on Monday, August 17. With partnering just days away, investor registrations are expected to accelerate further as firms prepare to identify companies and begin scheduling one-on-one meetings.

In five days of investor registration, more than 30 investor firms signed up to participate, reinforcing RESI’s position as one of the premier partnering events for early-stage life science companies seeking capital and strategic partnerships.

Recently Confirmed Investors (Last 5 Days)

Explore the full RESI Boston investor list here.

These new registrations join a growing community of investors from across venture capital, corporate venture, family offices, angel groups, foundations, and strategic investment organizations, creating even more opportunities for meaningful one-on-one meetings.

🏷️ Save $300 on RESI Boston Registration

Secure your pass before Early Bird rates end this Friday, August 14th to get full access to investor partnering!

Already, more than 200 investors representing over 150 global investor firms have registered for RESI Boston, with additional investors continuing to join each week.

As the investor roster continues to grow, so do the opportunities to connect with the partners who can help move your company forward.

Register now to join one of the industry’s most active life science partnering events. Early Bird pricing ends Friday, August 14, giving attendees one last opportunity to save $300 before standard rates take effect.