Next Phase Newsletter

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

While the life sciences industry is constantly subject to dynamic changes and trends, oncology/Immuno-oncology continues to be one of the most popular areas to invest in. Though some firms shy away from the indication due to it being an overcrowded space, there are many firms who strongly – or even solely focus – on oncology. From relatively traditional modalities such as small molecules (such as the $1B Celgene partnership with Triphase Accelerator/FACIT that happened earlier this year) to rapidly emerging approaches like oncolytic viruses and cell/gene therapy, there are still many promising therapies and novel approaches that have not yet come to light.

The Oncology Innovation panel at the upcoming RESI Europe Conference in Vienna, will highlight 5 speakers who actively seek investment opportunities in oncology. The panel will run from 1:00 – 1:50 pm on the day of RESI Europe, Monday, March 25^th, 2019, so if you are a company attending RESI who is working on innovative oncology therapies, you would not want to miss out on this panel.

Here is our lineup of panelists:

Claus Andersson, General Partner, Sunstone Life Science Ventures (Moderator)
Claus Andersson is General Partner in the Life Science group and has been with the team since it was established. He has been engaged with more than 18 companies and has held either chairing positions or board memberships to share his experience from the last 16 years of working with entrepreneurs, co-investors and consultants in life sciences. Claus has extensive experience in strategy execution and technology development from various parts of the Life Science ecosystem: both as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, scientist, and corporate manager. He holds a Master’s degree in Civil Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and a PhD in Mathematical Statistics from the University of Copenhagen and the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Toshiyasu Shimomura, Senior Investment Director, Taiho Ventures

Toshi Shimomura is Senior Investment Director at Bay Area-based Taiho Ventures, the corporate venture capital of Taiho Pharmaceutical. With $300M under management, Taiho Ventures invests in early stage oncology companies. Prior to Taiho Ventures, he worked for Taiho Pharmaceutical for 7 years as Early Development Team Chair of TAS-117 (a small molecule AKT inhibitor) being evaluated in Phase I study as well as Biology Project Leader at Taiho’s Tsukuba Research Institute. Before Taiho, he worked for Banyu Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Merck & Co. for 10 years. As Project Leader, he developed two clinical development candidates of Aurora A kinase and contributed initiation of Phase I clinical studies. He was also involved other kinase inhibitor programs. He received PhD in Biological Science from Nagoya University, Japan in 1999, where he learned molecular biology, cell cycle and DNA damage checkpoint regulation.

Hakan Goker, Senior Investment Director, M Ventures

Hakan Goker (Ph.D.) is a senior investment director at M Ventures, corporate venture arm of the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Hakan has been investing for the past 12 years and joined Merck Ventures in 2013. Previously Hakan was a partner at Aescap Venture and prior to that worked at Atlas Venture. Since 2006, Hakan was instrumental in the creation, financing, and corporate strategy of multiple biotechnology companies globally including Artios, Asceneuron, Storm, Bicycle, and F-star. Hakan received his PhD in cancer biology from the Institute of Cancer Research/ University of London and continued his scientific career with post-doctoral work at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre/Royal Marsden Hospital. He gained his BSc Honours, from University College London. Hakan currently is a board member at Artios Pharma, Asceneuron, Forendo, Macrophage Pharma, Tocopherx, Synaffix, Storm Therapeutics, Raze Therapeutics and is the chairman of iOnctura.

Mark Krul, Partner, Aglaia Oncology Funds

Mark has been involved in anticancer drug development since 1993 and has a background in molecular biology and immunology. Before founding Aglaia Oncology Funds in 2004, Mark was Program Director of the NDDO Research Foundation. He held several positions at NDDO Oncology BV (formerly the EORTC New Drug Development Office) with respect to oncology drug development strategies (1997-2002). From 1993 till 1997 Mark has been Research Manager of the European Cancer Center and headed the Department of Molecular Virology at the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection from 1989 till 1993.

Katherine Cohen, Venture Partner, Panacea Venture

Dr. Katherine Cohen is a venture partner at Panacea Venture. From 2011-2016 Dr. Cohen served as CEO at Hookipa Biotech AG (now

Hookipa Pharma Inc), where she led the company founding, Series A and Series B venture financing, and developed the company from early science to clinical stage. Prior to Hookipa, Dr. Cohen served as Senior Vice President for Corporate & Business Development at Intercell AG (now Valneva SE) and participated in the growth of the company from a start up to a successful public/commercial stage enterprise. Prior to her biotech entrepreneurial career, Dr. Cohen worked in academic research and industrial development at Sandoz/VIRCC. Dr. Cohen earned her Ph.D in Biology at the City University of New York and she is a qualified European Patent Attorney.

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation; Creator of RESI Conference Series

There is an opportunity to take advantage of in the global partnering domain but you have to leave your region in order to participate.

The LSN team just visited 8 countries and met with over 250 companies across Europe and Israel. The goal of the trip was to help the regional technology hubs and their constituents understand what it takes to go from a regional mindset to a global mindset in finding investors and channel partners. We saw first-hand the challenges that European life science entrepreneurs are facing. The big two: time and cost to go outside the region.

The biggest obstacles I found for fundraising European companies was a tendency to have a more conservative nature, and not being totally convinced that if you want to play in the global funding ecosystem you have to play by a new set of rules. These new rules may be different both culturally and in the business dynamic. The global marketplace abounds with compelling technology assets and understanding the competitive landscape and where you fit is crucial.

We told audiences at the LSN Fundraising Boot Camp workshops that you either have to go for it, or not. And if you do, you need to figure out how to get out of your region and start a continuous dialogue with the global players who are looking to fund and partner with you. RESI is bringing over 200 investors to Europe, March 25 in Vienna for the first time – the fundraising CEOs I met with said they would love to attend but the time and cost associated was prohibitive. Fundraising is an expensive endeavor: as strange as it sounds, you need to spend money to get money. In addition, it’s important to remember that investors invest in teams as well as technologies, and they expect their startup CEOs to do what they have to do to succeed.

Having run 22 global conferences since 2016, I’ve observed that global startups and their assets are in a critical timing situation. They either catch the wave or miss the wave of opportunity that is happening right now. Once the wave passes, it is gone. It is not waiting for fundraising CEOs to rationalize spending some time and money to meet with prospective investors. Fundraising is a numbers game – for example, you could do a deep dive in your region and find 50-100 investor targets to call on and start a dialogue with, or alternatively you could go global and find 400-500 investors that are a fit for your stage of development and product. Going global is clearly more likely to yield results.

If you are trying to raise capital today, in 2019, it takes 9-18 months and is extremely competitive in this golden age of life science product development. If you do not go for it and put everything on the line, then you will miss the wave and it will only make the challenges you will face harder. As a scientist-entrepreneur, it takes one investor meeting to change your life, but getting to that one meeting takes a lot of drive and persistence.

LSN has helped over 300 global startups to raise over 500mm dollars over the years. Our RESI conference is unique in that it is the only dedicated investor conference that is cross-border and cross-silo (drugs, devices, diagnostics and digital health). LSN brings a one-to-one ratio of investors/strategic partners to fundraising CEOs. I have been hearing about the same issues of cost and timing since I started LSN seven years ago…I saw the wave and wanted to catch it.

I would advise global fundraising CEOs to try and get into the global ecosystem and start a dialogue with investors and partners outside your region. If you went to just three of LSN RESI events starting with RESI Vienna in March, RESI Philadelphia in June and RESI Boston in September, you have a truly unprecedented opportunity to meet 30-50 investors in total across 3 events, which would give every CEO a real understanding of where they are at and what they have to do to get funded and find partners.

I feel your pain. I know you care about the ultimate success of your company’s products, which could save lives and impact patient care. However you do need some tough love here. Don’t create a false premise that regional discussions are enough to get you funded. Take the extra step into the global partnering arena and take advantage of a vehicle like the RESI conference series who can help make the process very efficient.

By Karen Deyo, Investor Research Analyst, LSN

Investing in the seed stage is always a risky proposition, especially in the life sciences. Startups at an early stage face risk on many fronts – scientific, regulatory, execution, market –  and many investors prefer to wait until an asset is derisked before committing capital. Seed funds specialize in the early stages, each with their own strategy to help their portfolio companies cross the ‘valley of death’ to reach the more traditional venture investment stage. RESI’s focus on early-stage life science includes these earliest investors, who will share some of their insights on how investment decisions are made at the seed stages. These investors will discuss how they mitigate their risk at the earliest stage, what they look for in these companies and how they get involved in the development of the company.

To learn about Seed Funds and how they help companies grow out of infancy, attend the panel at RESI Europe to hear the panelists speak. The participants are:

Philipp Rittershaus, Senior Investment Manager, High-Tech-Gründerfonds

Dr Philipp Rittershaus studied technical biology in Stuttgart and also obtained an MBA in engineering management alongside his doctorate at B.R.A.I.N. AG. Prior to becoming an Investment Manager at HTGF in 2015, he was a self-employed consultant and implemented a range of life science and spin-off projects. At the HTGF Philipp nurses a portfolio of 10 Life Science Companies.

Pierre Socha, Principal, Amadeus Capital Partners

Pierre joined Amadeus Capital Partners in 2012. Pierre has a current investment focus on digital health, medical technology, AI and machine learning and cybersecurity. He is a non-executive director on the boards of Inotec, Repositive, Doctify, Congenica and oversees Amadeus’s investments in PhoreMost, Organox and Antidote (formerly TrialReach). Pierre brings operational experience to these investments, having managed the growth of several life science businesses in Asia and Europe. During a decade at biotech company Avesthagen, he guided the group’s strategy and European activities, contributing to acquisitions, joint ventures and exits. Pierre is French and holds an MSc in Environmental Economics (Hons.-SciencesEco) from Université de Provence, France and a BSc in Finance & Econometrics (Math Spe.-SciencesEco) from Université Louis Pasteur, France. He has attended executive programs at Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

Markus Wanko, Managing Partner, IST CUBE

Following a fifteen-year career in investing and strategy consulting and upon returning to Austria, Markus joined IST to start TWIST, IST’s tech transfer organisation, and has been driving the development of IST PARK, the technology park adjacent to IST Austria, and IST CUBE. His background is in venture capital investing with Safeguard Scientifics and the European Investment Fund, strategy consulting with the Boston Consulting Group, and principal investment with QIA, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. He has supported a broad range of startups in the process, energy and tech industries. He has an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School, an MSc from TU Vienna, and an MIM from WU Vienna and HEC Paris.

Sabine Kaiser, Venture Partner D/A/CH, NLC

Sabine Kaiser has more than 20 years of experience in consulting and entrepreneurial investing. Previously, she worked as a strategic consultant with McKinsey&Company, as a venture capital investor for Technologieholding VC GmbH and 3i plc, and in asset management for BTV, an internationally active German single family office. Sabine is passionate about technological and social innovations that have a significant positive impact on peoples’ lives. She believes in the ability of individuals and companies to create positive externalities while pursuing their business and in the potential for sustainable growth. Sabine holds a Diploma in Human Biology from the Philipps-University of Marburg and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She is also an IHK-certified business mediator, specialized on conflict resolution in Venture Capital financed companies.

By Lucy Parkinson, VP of Investor Research, LSN

Life Science Nation is looking ahead to the summer, when we’ll be joining thousands of executives from the life science and pharma industries in Philadelphia on June 3rd during the BIO International Convention.  By bringing the Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) conference to Philadelphia in June, LSN will provide a focused early stage venue for investors to find new technologies and connect with early stage entrepreneurs from all around the world.  RESI’s agenda of panels and workshops will provide fundraising CEOs with guidance on how to find capital even for the most novel potential breakthrough product.  Panels include emerging areas of technology like Investing in Cell & Gene Therapy, Mental & Behavioral Health and AI in Healthcare, and key potential sources of capital like Asia Corporates & Strategics, Korea Investors and Angels & Family Offices.  At RESI Philadelphia, entrepreneurs can both meet investors and hear candid, insightful discussion on what makes investors tick. If you’d like to join us during BIO, register here.

Chuck Stetson

An interview with Chuck Stetson, CEO, Stetson Family Office – By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation; Creator of RESI Conference Series

Dennis Ford

The Stetson Family Office has been active in driving global initiatives between two key investor groups: family offices that have desire and dollars to impact global health, and regional angel groups who have the ability to vet and recommend compelling early stage life science technologies. These alliances have the power to accelerate early stage investment across the silos of drugs, devices, diagnostics and digital health. There is a multitude of global early stage life science startups that are in need of early stage funding partners who can provide the capital to develop the next generation healthcare products. These next generation products will have a great impact on virtually everybody on the planet.

Recently Dennis Ford, CEO of Life Science Nation and the creator of the Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference Series (RESI) sat down with Chuck Stetson, the CEO of the Stetson Family Office and founder of the Global Family Office BioForum, to get an update on Chuck’s global initiatives.

Dennis: Chuck, what exactly is the Global Family Office BioForum (GFOB)? How many Family Offices participate and how many cities throughout the world?

Chuck: I created and launched the entity Global BioForum because like my own family office, I discovered there were other family offices that are genuinely interested in philanthropy and social impact investing in healthcare, but finding and vetting the technology assets proved to be a challenge for them because of limited staff. To meet the challenge I created a strategy to match up regional angel networks with up to 40 members vetting each deal with regional family offices within the early stage life science arena. I did this by creating a strategic relationship with Life Science Nation and bringing my family office groups to the RESI conference events where they are able to connect with angels and also find technology that they may want to invest in. Over the last year I have hosted 4 very successful family office luncheons at the RESI events and will be bringing some of my family office network to the RESI Vienna Conference on March 25.

Currently we have an affiliated group of 260 active family offices meeting quarterly in 19 cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, with a stated goal to help to strengthen the life science early stage ecosystem. On April 23-24th, 2019, there will be a Global BioForum gathering in Chicago and will be held in cooperation with the Angel Capital Association (ACA). Founded in 2004, ACA is the official industry alliance of 13,000 angel investors working in 260 organizations. My relationships with LSN and ACA have helped connect the capital with the early stage life science products and we are already seeing great results.

Dennis: What are the direct goals that you have set with the Stetson Family Office and the Life Science Nation alliance?

Chuck: Early stage product development is all about securing funding to get the products developed faster. It is my personal goal to create programs that will aid international life science startups in raising seed capital, Series A and B funding rounds, and also launch a Boston-based immersion fundraising and partnering program run by LSN and integrated into the RESI conferences to prepare and educate fundraising CEOs on how to go from canvassing regionally to canvassing globally for potential investors. This would essentially prepare and integrate these startups into LSN’s global partnering ecosystem, including the Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Conference Series in Boston, San Francisco, Europe and Asia and access to LSN’s partner network.

Dennis: Would you like to add some more commentary on your efforts?

Chuck: In summary, I want to use the Global BioForum to help provide the seed rounds to move compelling technology out of the labs and onto the commercial development path. It will focus specifically on years 0 to 3, commonly referred to as “The Valley of Death”. Another goal is to advance women as investors and as entrepreneurs in the life sciences. Last but not least, is direct preliminary interest in products that impact healthy brain, diabetes, obesity and heart disease, although all products are welcome.

Chuck Stetson, CEO, Stetson Family Office

Eugene W. Stetson started the Stetson Family Office shortly after he personally led the buyout of The Coca-Cola Company through a public offering in August 1919 by the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, where he subsequently served as Chairman and just before he died and organized, he organize with the much smaller J.P. Morgan. At his death, Eugene was Coca-Cola’s longest serving member of the Board and of the Executive Committee. Chuck Stetson, the third generation running the family office, is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. The Stetson Family Office started Healthcare Impact Foundation, a 501-c-3 organization, in 2017 to bring capital and management expertise to local life science companies and to build and maintain an efficient life science eco-system composed of R&D facilities, incubation facilities, venture capital investors, angel investors, family office investors, and networks of experts in science, management, industry, reimbursement and public policy. Stetson Family Office has set up a unique Global Family Office BioForum with family offices around the globe working closely with their local healthcare innovation. Family Offices are responding with excitement.

By Lucy Parkinson, VP of Investor Research, LSN

RESI Europe’s two tracks of investor panel content will feature panel discussions that aim to inform entrepreneurs on how raising capital works in their vertical, and how major investor categories such as Family Offices, Angels, Seed Funds, and Big Pharma source and assess new healthcare technologies. With dozens of speakers coming from top firms, LSN would like to introduce you to some of the luminaries who will be appearing at RESI to provide their advice and expertise to attending entrepreneurs.

Chuck Steston, Stetson Family Office, Family Offices & Angels

Eugene W. Stetson started the Stetson Family Office shortly after he personally led the buyout of The Coca-Cola Company through a public offering in August 1919 by the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, where he subsequently served as Chairman and just before he died and organized, he organize with the much smaller J.P. Morgan. At his death, Eugene was Coca-Cola’s longest serving member of the Board and of the Executive Committee. Chuck Stetson, the third generation running the family office, is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. The Stetson Family Office started Healthcare Impact Foundation, a 501-c-3 organization, in 2017 to bring capital and management expertise to local life science companies and to build and maintain an efficient life science eco-system composed of R&D facilities, incubation facilities, venture capital investors, angel investors, family office investors, and networks of experts in science, management, industry, reimbursement and public policy. Stetson Family Office has set up a unique Global Family Office BioForum with family offices around the globe working closely with their local healthcare innovation. Family Offices are responding with excitement.

Florence dal Degan, Novo Nordisk, Big Pharma

Florence Dal Degan joined Novo Nordisk A/S in May 2016 as R&D Innovation Sourcing Director. The R&D Innovation Sourcing team of Novo Nordisk is global, with a presence at the Danish Headquarters, as well as a regional presence in Shanghai, Boston, New-York and Paris. Florence is based in Paris and is responsible for search and evaluation of new opportunities within Europe and Middle-East across the therapeutic areas that Novo Nordisk is dedicated to, such as diabetes, obesity, NASH, chronic cardiovascular diseases, nephropathy and haemophilia. Florence has a PhD in biochemistry from The National Institute of Agronomy (Agro-Paris Tech, France). She has over 20 years of experience in Research and Development in academic, biotech and pharma environments. Since 2000, Florence has worked with drug discovery and early development and has held several positions as group leader within R&D. She has been working with external innovation since 2012.

Philipp Rittershaus, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Seed Funds

Dr Philipp Rittershaus studied technical biology in Stuttgart and also obtained an MBA in engineering management alongside his doctorate at B.R.A.I.N. AG. Prior to becoming an Investment Manager at HTGF in 2015, he was a self-employed consultant and implemented a range of life science and spin-off projects. At the HTGF Philipp nurses a portfolio of 10 Life Science Companies.

Marco Boorsma, Forbion, Early Stage Therapeutics

Marco is Partner at Forbion Capital Partners and joined the firm in 2007. He has a background in molecular biology and biotechnology and brings operational and business development experience from both small and large businesses. Before joining Forbion Marco was Business Development Director and project manager at DSM Pharmaceutical Products and scientist at Cytos Biotechnology in Switzerland. He serves on the Board of Directors of Inflazome, NorthSea Therapeutics, Milestone Pharmaceuticals, Escalier Biosciences, RSPR Pharma, and Engene. After obtaining a master’s degree in molecular biology from the University of Groningen, Marco received his PhD in biotechnology from the ETH Institute for Technology in Zürich, and completed part of his research at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK.

Roel Bulthuis, INKEF Capital, Early Stage Therapeutics

Roel Bulthuis is a Managing Director and head of the Healthcare investment team at INKEF Capital. Roel combines close to 20 years of experience across venture capital, pharma business development and M&A and healthcare investment banking. Prior to joining INKEF he served as SVP and Managing Director of M-Ventures which he created and developed into a leading CVC fund. Prior to that, he served in senior positions in global business development and M&A at Merck Serono and in the healthcare investment banking team at Fortis Bank. Roel is a Kauffman Fellow and passionate about continuously challenging the status quo. Roel holds a Msc. in Biopharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University and an MBA in Finance from the Helsinki School of Economics.