A Canadian Fundraising CEO’s Success at RESI

February 22, 2018June 25, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

An interview with Anton Neschadim, CEO, ImmunoBiochem
– By Chris Cummings, Senior Marketing Manager, LSN

Chris Cummings: What is your background, and how long have you been working in the life science space?

Anton Neschadim: I am a scientist-entrepreneur. I have a very deep, multi-disciplinary science background that I ultimately combined with a business degree, all from the University of Toronto. I am a lateral thinker, and as such always strived to be a subject-matter expert across multiple areas. And so, contrary to the traditional path of specialization in academia, I wanted to become a problem solver and innovator, and sought to master additional disciplines with every degree – chemistry, physics, immunology, cancer research, regenerative medicine. I believe that being able to draw on knowledge from multiple disciplines is key to generating creative insights. I transitioned into industry eight years ago, in the final year of my PhD, and took up a drug development role in a biologics program, while continuing to work in an academic lab evenings and weekends to amass more than 25 manuscripts and patents. Three years ago, I have focused on leading ImmunoBiochem with an exciting novel biologics program.

Chris Cummings: Are you currently fundraising? What previous financing or milestones has your company achieved (that you can disclose)?

Anton Neschadim: We are always fundraising, and are targeting to close another round led by current investors and partners in March. Our first deal was with one of the RESI sponsors and helped us develop fully-human antibody molecules for our lead target, and the subsequent angel-led round allowed us to develop a lead that we showed to be both efficacious and safe in preclinical animal tumor models. This new round will take our lead molecule into large animal studies, but we are eager to get into the clinic and are looking for additional capital to get us there.

Chris Cummings: How many RESI conferences have you attended previously, and when was your first event? Was ImmunoBiochem fundraising at the time?

Anton Neschadim: I have now attended three RESI conferences with the goal of raising funds every time – two in our hometown of Toronto, and the latest RESI during the JP Morgan healthcare week in San Francisco. We have closed a deal or round subsequent to each conference, and are on track to closing another round of financing following RESI in San Francisco. RESI has been extremely helpful for connecting with smart early-stage capital and learning how to better develop and tell our story to a broad range of investors. You know you have done well when you have new investors reaching out to you to learn more.

Chris Cummings: What components of RESI do you find most valuable? Do you spend most your time in partnering, or try to attend panels as well? When you participated in the Innovation Challenge, what aspects did you find beneficial?

Anton Neschadim: I tend to spend at least half of my day in one-on-one meetings, and then network with investors free-form outside of that. Panels and different tracks can help you be more targeted with the latter. I find the half-hour partnering format to be very optimal – just the right amount of time to make a connection with the investor, tell your story, answer questions, and for you to learn more about the investor’s interests and ask for feedback. The Innovation Challenge provides great exposure and is like real fundraising. It helps to have a team and to ultimately hold as many meaningful conversations as possible.

Chris Cummings: What advice can you give to other fundraising entrepreneurs attending RESI? For example, do you have any suggestions on mastering partnering, or perhaps maximizing your visibility in the Innovation Challenge?

Anton Neschadim: Visibility and being able to highlight your novelty and differentiation are paramount. What I found to be most useful is to have a team on the ground. It is great to have at least one person to move around the event, strike up conversations and bring people to your poster, while another is taking one-on-one meetings. When it comes to one-on-one meetings: register early and start requesting meetings as soon as partnering opens or even before that – spots fill up really fast. Do your research and target the right investors, avoid generic or overly long messaging, and manage time efficiently during the one-on-one meetings. The main goal is to get a second meeting or follow up.

About ImmunoBiochem

ImmunoBiochem is addressing significant unmet needs in oncology by developing highly-selective biological therapeutics. The majority of targeted biologics, which are focused on identifying and targeting unique features on the surface of cancer cells, face the challenge of tumor heterogeneity and general lack of selective tumor antigens, particularly as more potent platforms are utilized. CAR-T therapies are very exciting, with a single CAR-T cell being able to terminate from hundreds to thousands of cancer cells, but the current generation is extremely limited by very few suitable targets, such as CD19. The second generation of CAR-T therapies in the clinic will have to find a way to derive that selectivity from other mechanisms. To circumvent these challenges of surface-targeted biologics and cell therapies, ImmunoBiochem is solving this problem by combining a highly targeted and precise therapeutics platform – antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs – and non-traditional targets in the secretome of cancer cells that are amplified in the tumor microenvironment. ImmunoBiochem has defined a novel class of targets by isolating proteins with specific properties that are necessary to achieve selective and efficacious targeting of tumors with ADCs. ImmunoBiochem was the original inventor of this technology and has tested this concept within an academic institute, and then developed a lead human antibody molecule in collaboration with the University of Toronto. Today we are supported by multiple organizations, including Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JLABS), where ImmunoBiochem is based, CCAB (the Centre for the Commercialization of Antibodies and Biologics), our key development partner and investor, OBIO, through membership and the CAAP program, and H2i at the University of Toronto.

When Raising Capital, CEOs Should Understand the LSN Value Proposition

February 22, 2018July 5, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Skylar Jacobs, Business Development Manager, LSN

As Next Phase discussed two weeks ago, the world of early stage biotech and medtech investment is far less than straightforward and CEOs often have limited resources for learning where they fit into the capital landscape. In this article, we’ll look more closely at how LSN designed the LSN Investor Platform to address this problem.

Finding and Connecting with Investors that are a Fit for Your Company

LSN has found that the biggest difficulty for fundraising executives is identifying active investors that are a fit for their stage of development and product. When raising a seed or series A financing, most executives go straight to a few brand name VCs and angel groups in their backyard, and, mistakenly, think this is going to get the job done. The reality is that fundraising is a numbers game, and there are thousands of groups across the world that are not currently known to the fundraising team, but may be a great fit for your venture. The problem is how to efficiently identify these groups, if they are a fit and, most importantly, how to reach them.

Global Matching Platform

Through this outreach, LSN has created the LSN Investor Database, giving fundraising executives the ability to generate a global target list of investors who are a fit for their company. Like all databases, there is a front end of the active players – which is approximately half of our total network– which includes profiles of firms in active dialogue with the LSN Research Team and profiles of firms that have enough publicly available information/contact details to be listed. The back-end of the database contains investors that have requested that LSN match them with fundraising companies but prefer not to be listed in the front end, investors we have identified but are not currently investing, and profiles that will be moved into the front end once we have enough data to justify value. The good news is that we think we have identified about 85% of the global early stage investors. The functionality of the LSN Investor Database allows you to easily apply filters to generate a list of firms who are a fit for your company, which usually leaves about 300-500 firms as initial targets to begin initial qualification and potential interest.

Pricing

The LSN team has conducted an analysis of hundreds of successful fundraising campaigns and has determined that, on average, a start-up company can expect to spend between $70,000 to $100,000 on their fundraising efforts. These costs include: creating and maintaining your marketing materials and web presence, business trips, conferences, partnering road trips and other miscellaneous costs.

Campaign Component	Typical Cost
Creating and maintaining your branding, messaging, marketing collateral and web presence for a year	$25,000 – $30,000
One conference per quarter, travel and expenses	$12,000 – $20,000
1-2 week road trip per quarter, two people	$10,000 – $15,000
Global target list of investors and campaign infrastructure	$10,000 – $12,000
Legal and professional fees	$10,000 – $20,000
TOTAL	$67,000 – $97,000

The LSN Investor Platform is competitively priced at $6,995 for an annual subscription to fundraising executives. This pricing is based upon making you, the fundraiser, more effective and efficient by dramatically increasing your access to global investors that are a fit for your company’s stage of development and product. Pricing justification is that the annual subscription costs:

10% of typical fundraising campaign costs
Approximately $25 per targeted investor profile

The LSN Research Team has done the work for you to collect details regarding exact investment interests, typical allocation size, fund vintage, company management team requirements, past investment history, and personal contact details for Partners, Directors, and C-Level Executives at each firm – information that is rarely found in other investor profiles. The price of the LSN Investor Database includes: initial identification of our client’s global target list of 300-500 investors, a consultation on your introductory marketing materials (intro email and deck), campaign outreach advice, and email alerts including updates of investors added to the platform who are a fit for your company. Additionally, the LSN Investor Platform includes an export function that provides startup CEOs with data that can be imported into a CRM system to manage outreach and track the progress of every investor relationship. LSN has already integrated with SalesForce.com to make this process seamless for our clients. In total, LSN offers a complete package for fundraising executives to ensure they have the strategy and investor targets necessary to conduct a successful capital raise.

The Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference Series

In addition to the LSN Investor Platform, the RESI Conference is another tool provided by LSN for fundraising CEOs. The RESI conference allows entrepreneurs to meet face-to-face with up to 16 relevant investors in one day and begin to develop a personal relationship with them. Subscribers of the LSN Investor Platform have a powerful tool that allows them dig into the investors’ profile prior to the meeting to understand the investors’ interests and preferences, greatly increasing the quality of an intro discussion and making the best use of their face-time. Using the LSN Investor Platform and RESI conference in parallel creates a tremendous value for any fundraising CEO in the early-stage life science space by not only providing the connections, but also by facilitating face-to-face interactions.

In Summary

LSN estimates that approximately 250 clients who read our CEO’s book, The Life Science Executive’s Fundraising Manifesto, purchased the database, and participated in the RESI Conference Series have raised upwards of 350 million dollars. LSN’s value add to a fundraising CEO and scientist/entrepreneur is equivalent to 5 years’ work by 6 LSN research analysts, curating your Global Target List (GTL), which is at least 50% of the effort of raising capital – finding investors that are a fit for your stage of development and product.

A Relationship-Transactional-Based Conference: LSN’s Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference – What’s Different?

February 15, 2018July 5, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

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

RESI takes place every few months and is a “rolling” ongoing conference series that provides a vehicle to regularly meet with potential partners. No other conference provider has instituted this kind of format. Most conferences are either annual or bi-annual. At RESI, the two main constituencies – scientist/entrepreneurs and investors/strategic partners – have an ongoing opportunity to connect based on fit (i.e. type of product, stage of company, size of raise and other criteria), create a dialogue that grows into a relationship and eventual partnership. LSN has found that having a conference series where buyer and seller can easily meet and follow up every few months greatly aids the building-a-relationship process.

The state of the partnering-conference model that LSN saw when we launched RESI was mostly content-based informational conferences with a partnering software program you could use to set up meetings.

LSN added a matching module for the pairing-up of profiles of the early stage buy-side and sell-side players. RESI is a relationship-based partnering conference and not a content-based informational conference. There is a huge difference in the two models. I recently wrote an article about the subject.

Partnerships take time to move down the tracks, and the RESI conference provides a one-of-a-kind vehicle: a series of ongoing meetings in various geographic life science hubs that has become an industry-wide vehicle to identify, meet and continue a dialogue with potential partners. For both the sell-side and the buy-side, establishing and consummating partnerships is a full-time job. RESI makes it easier for both sides. Scientist/entrepreneurs find investors/strategic partners and investors/strategic partners source technology assets.

Most life science conferences, even though some have partnering, are still information-centric: paid speakers, panels of industry trends and programming around providing information and education. RESI is relationship-based, so no paid speakers – as a matter of fact, investors vie for speaking spots because of the status that is associated with being on a panel at a RESI conference. Most conferences are silo specific – either drugs, devices, diagnostics or healthcare IT. RESI covers all these silos, and that’s a plus for investors and strategic partners whose mandates cut across several verticals.

RESI is purely partnering-based, and the content and panels revolve around the investors’ and the strategic partners’ existing mandates. RESI’s Workshops are all about helping with various start up issues: from valuations, to negotiating LOIs, to branding and messaging, to fundraising boot camps. No FDA, no BREXIT, no lending or debt, just very focused on connecting and navigating the early-stage arena. It’s all about learning and interacting with investors and strategic partners.

Canada is a Rising Power in Life Science Innovation

February 15, 2018June 22, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Lucy Parkinson, Director of Research, LSN

RESI is headed to MaRS in Toronto for the third time. Our annual visits to the city have allowed LSN to take the pulse of Canadian life science, and we have seen Canada go from strength to strength over the years and attract an increasing amount of investment interest. Taking a look at a sample of startup data from the LSN Company Platform, we can examine life science trends in Canada.

While every region of Canada is home to some life science startup activity, the main hubs are in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Let’s see how the different verticals within life science and health innovation are represented in those three hubs. From our sample, we took a look at early stage therapeutic companies (Preclinical through Phase II), development-stage medical technology companies, and all digital health companies.

While biotech activity is occurring throughout Canada, we see a concentration of digital health and medtech activity in Ontario. The city of Toronto is home to several major research universities and institutions, and innovation has grown up around this research hub.

Looking more closely at those early stage biotech assets, we find that Canada’s drug development startups have developed a strong base of preclinical assets and many of those assets have moved through to Phase I and Phase II.

Much like in other regions, oncology is the dominant area of research, but Canada is also home to a wealth of biotech development in neurology, infectious diseases, dermatology, and other fields.

It’s little wonder that investors are starting to look north of the border for life science deals. Taking a look into the LSN Investor Platform, we find that LSN tracks over 700 investors who will consider an investment opportunity in Canada. Over 80% of those investors are located outside of Canada! We anticipate that from those investment firms, over 300 investment staff will be in attendance at the upcoming RESI on MaRS event. As novel life science technology becomes an increasingly global marketplace, LSN encounters more investors who have a global rather than a regional mindset when it comes to finding high quality assets, and with so much research being generated by top institutions, Canada is well placed to take advantage of that trend.

“The 10 Myths of Fundraising” Presentation at Freemind Group’s Non-Dilutive Funding Summit

February 15, 2018February 15, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Claire Jeong, Research Analyst, LSN

At the 13^th Annual Non-Dilutive Funding Summit on January 10^th during JPM, Life Science Nation (LSN)’s Founder & CEO, Dennis Ford presented to an audience of actively fundraising, early-stage life science entrepreneurs. “The 10 Myths of Fundraising” session helped provide fundamental context on the daunting fundraising process, from proper branding & messaging to creating a Global Target List (GTL) of investors and how to utilize these materials for a successful fundraising campaign. Most importantly, the session walked through the top 10 myths in fundraising, uncovering the truth to these common misconceptions and providing realistic insights that every fundraising CEO should know.

For those who missed out, we are happy to be able to provide a video of this presentation! If you are interested in delving into the topics covered in the video and beyond, be sure to take a look at Dennis’s book, The Life Science Executive’s Fundraising Manifesto.

A Compelling Early Stage Buyer – Seller Matching Platform

February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Cole Bunn, Senior Research Analyst, LSN

The world of early stage biotech/medtech investment is far less than straightforward, and entrepreneurs who have been through the arduous, frustrating process of raising money will second that. Adding to this challenge, other than a personal network, fundraising CEOs have limited resources for learning which investors are in their universe and how to get in touch with them – LSN was founded to address this exact problem.

When raising a seed or series A financing, most people’s mind goes straight to a few brand name VCs and angel groups in their backyard, and mistakenly think this is going to get the job done. The reality is that fundraising is a numbers game, and there are thousands of groups across the world that are not well known and don’t necessarily fall into one of these investor buckets, but may be a great fit for your venture. The problem is that you have no efficient way of identifying who these groups are, if they are a fit and most importantly, a way to reach them.

Over the past 5 years, the LSN research team of Research Analysts has been dedicated to uncovering these groups, building a relationship with the associates and partners of the firm and capturing critical data points on their interests and investment criteria, and most importantly, building out a custom profile that details the firm’s specific interests, how they structure their investments and how much money they put into companies. In the LSN Investor Platform, we have amassed just over 5,000 profiles of investment firms (over 2,000 of which are actively investing), across the globe including angel groups, venture capital firms, corporate VCs, big pharma and other corporate strategics, family offices, venture philanthropy groups, endowments/foundations, hedge funds, private equity firms, government organizations and institutional alternative investors who are investing in the early stage life science space. The functionality of the LSN investor platform allows you to easily apply filters to generate a list of these firms who are a fit for your specific company and financing, which usually leaves about 300-400 firms as initial targets to begin parsing.

The personal connection between the LSN research team and an investment firm allows LSN to capture and utilize a unique flow of information and provides an unmatched tool for fundraising CEOs to understand the players in their space, their nuanced preferences/strategies and a way to begin a dialogue with them. No other service or data provider comes close to the focused, high touch, relationship-oriented nature of data collection and maintenance. It’s clear that no CEO or startup management team would possibly be able to identify 300-400 relevant investor targets, much less capture a detailed understanding of their mandate and a way to contact them, regardless of the amount of time they have to research investors. Additionally, the LSN Investor Platform includes an export function that provides startup CEOs with data that can be imported into a CRM system to manage outreach and track the progress of every investor relationship.

The LSN Investor Platform serves as the core of everything LSN does. The RESI Conference, an early-stage investment/partnering event that allows entrepreneurs to meet face-to-face with up to 16 relevant investors in one day, is powered by the LSN Investor Platform. The RESI conference allows entrepreneurs to meet these investors in person and begin to develop a personal relationship with them. Subscribers of the LSN Investor Platform have a powerful tool that allows them dig into the investors profile prior to the meeting to understand the investor’s interests and preferences, greatly increasing the quality of an intro discussion and making the best use of their facetime with the investor. Using the LSN Investor Platform and RESI conference in parallel creates a tremendous value for any fundraising CEO in the early stage life science space who is looking to find relevant investors, understand their mandate and begin a dialogue in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Diagnostic Investors Share their Insights

February 8, 2018June 25, 2018 ~ Next Phase Admin ~ Leave a comment

By Christine A. Wu, Senior Research Analyst, LSN

We see a lot of innovative point-of-care diagnostics out there, but what do these opportunities truly mean to diagnostic investors? How do diagnostic companies climb the reimbursement hurdle and how will the actionable information provided by these new diagnostics change healthcare delivery? Diagnostic investors discussed these questions at LSN’s Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference in San Francisco on January 9^th.

Moderated by Akhil Saklecha, Partner of Artiman Ventures, we heard from:

Jenny Rooke, Venture Partner, F-Prime Capital
Alessio Beverina, Founder & Managing Partner, Panakès Partners
Eric Hargarten, Investment Associate, Sandbox Industries
Wouter Meuleman, Director of Investments, Illumina Ventures

Last week, we summarized what we heard from the Big Pharma panel. Now what about the diagnostics side? Below are the main takeaway points.

Consider how the diagnostic would effectively disrupt the current healthcare delivery system to solve the problem. Investors are looking at the rest of the diagnostic system, how solutions are currently being delivered, and how your solution solves the workflow of delivery. Areas these investors noted as “uncapped and wide open” are concussions and head injuries, genomics, proteomics, and oncology.

“Point-of-Care” diagnostics is too crowded an area, especially when the company does not know at what point or for what care. There are many barriers to entry for point-of-care diagnostics to demonstrate usefulness in the healthcare system. How does the point-of-care diagnostic affect a clinical decision? Other oversaturated diagnostic areas are liquid biopsies, such as blood-based oncology tests, and NGS software tools.

Focus on payor-relations by continually publishing clinical evidence, especially if aiming for reimbursement. One of the large concerns for diagnostics is reimbursement. If the company can solve a significant problem for patients, but cannot demonstrate a business case for the key players in the healthcare system, adoption will be a huge issue. Particularly in the U.S. where the expectation is for third-party insurance companies to pay, it becomes imperative for diagnostic companies to perform trials and demonstrate clinical utility in practice. Investors suggest having a person on the team dedicated to publishing studies aimed at winning over payors. How many studies should you complete before getting reimbursement, you ask? “One more than you have,” quotes Eric Hargarten from Sandbox Industries.

Think more broadly than classic venture money—VCs are not your only source of capital, especially for diagnostics. Apply for non-dilutive grant money—SBIRs are a great way to progress early-stage development. Other equity, dilutive funding sources that are not exactly the classic healthcare investors also exist. These can be tech investors that are interested in the data-side of diagnostics, as well as corporate and strategic partners. Companies should also seek foundations and family offices that are perhaps more mission-driven around the problem at hand. Incubators are also a source to gain early proof-of-concept.

Final Advice for Entrepreneurs:

Have a high level of clarity. This demonstrates proprietary insight of the clinical problem and will get the investors’ attention to drive further conversation. Be sure the issue you are trying to solve is explained as clear as possible.
Consider the strategic alignment with the investor. Also consider the market size, particularly for payor or provider-backed venture funds.
Be prepared for technical conversations. Investors are excited by great science and great technology that solves problems others are not able to solve (think diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease before any symptoms appear!). Have your technical material on hand and be prepared to go deep. That said, be sure to also know your business model and plans for regulatory reimbursement.
Carefully pick your advisors, board of directors, and KOLs. Be sure they understand what you are doing and truly champion your company.
Think about what your company will look like in five years, and know what it takes to get there.