Next Phase Newsletter

Interview with Juan Carlos Lopez, Founder, and Andy Marshall, Partner of Haystack Sciences By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO Life Science Nation.

Dennis Ford

Juan Carlos Lopez

Andy Marshall

Haystack Science is a boutique consulting firm specialized in identifying and vetting the translational potential of academic projects and preclinical companies. We met with Juan Carlos Lopez and Andrew Marshall, two former Nature editors who founded Haystack, and spoke about how they help academic startups maximize their chances of success and their potential to attract seed and early-stage capital.

Dennis Ford (DF): What is the problem you are addressing?

Juan Carlos Lopez (JC): We’re interested in the disconnect between early-stage science from academic centers and the data needed to make therapeutic projects compelling for clinical development and investment. It’s the age-old problem known as the valley of death.

Andy Marshall (AM): Or the valley of debt if you’ve put your life savings into it! At Haystack, we appreciate that company building is a long and expensive road. Unless you’ve traveled that road several times, understanding the entire path for your product from beginning to end – foundational research to clinical development – can be hard. You need to think about the whole path to be successful. We provide feedback and pointers, knowing what investors and pharma think about when evaluating opportunities, so that a project has the greatest chance of attracting capital.

DF: What differentiates Haystack from other consultants in the space?

JC: Haystack’s partners spent a good part of our careers – Andy at Nature Biotech and I at Nature Medicine – evaluating a vast range of translational research and technologies from across the globe. We know what outstanding research looks like. If you want that perspective and overview of the science behind your project and where you need to take it, we are your guys. Together we’ve worked in pharma, venture capital, and foundations, so we know what projects need to be successful in those arenas.

AM: Yes. And Haystack can make introductions. We can help you find the right investors, prepare for that one interview with them (because you won’t normally get more than one chance), and maximize your chances of success.

DF: Who are you offering your services to?

JC: Our primary clients are academic founders, TTOs, and CEOs of biotech startups in preclinical development. Haystack also helps investors and foundations assess technologies and opportunities and prioritize assets in areas of interest to their portfolios.

DF: What are some of challenges for early-stage projects or biotech startups?

AM: A lot of research published in Cell, Science or Nature has that last paragraph: “And this finding may lead to the development of new therapies…” But building a successful company around that foundational science is a long haul. Experiments take long and don’t always reproduce. Competition and technological advances can make your program obsolete. It is hard to predict from mice what works in humans. You need to orient your scientific, human and financial capital to reach first-in-human studies as efficiently and economically as possible.

JC: At Haystack, we see a lot of advanced projects aimed at wrong indications, missing key data or seeking to enter crowded markets. We can highlight areas where a project needs to refocus or correct course to maximize its chances of success.

AM: Our feedback is also objective and unbiased. There’s a myth that academics and TTOs have broad access to industry expertise in their local ecosystem. Sure, they can access that advice, but the fact is that feedback is nearly always informal and cursory. Pharma and investors are not in the business of giving you detailed feedback, they have other priorities. We, on the other hand, provide formal, objective feedback that is actionable.

JC: Yes, this is a key point. There’s usually a big delta between what people in industry want and where an academic project is. Investors don’t generally give specific feedback because they don’t see the point. Telling a founder which key experiments are missing isn’t a good use of their time because these experiments are costly and take a long time. By then, the investor’s dry powder is gone, and the fund’s strategic goals may have changed. Or a pharma company may have shifted its focus away from your therapeutic area.

DF: What services are you offering to founders or startup CEOs who come to you?

JC: Part of our passion for this area is for more entrepreneurs to succeed. This is why Haystack put together our Therapeutics Evaluation Form. It asks the questions that a pharma company would ask before launching a drug-discovery program or an investor would ask before financing a project. It is a free tool, and we regard it as partly educational. Once you complete the form, we send you back a numerical score (the Haystack Score). This reflects the potential of a project to reach clinical development and to attract further investment. It consists of around 45 questions, many of which require simple Yes/No answers and will take ~30-40 minutes to complete.

AM: If, after filling out the form, you want to delve deeper into how to improve your project, Haystack can create a custom ‘gap analysis’ that will help prioritize next steps. And if the project is ready for investment, we can introduce you to investors who might be interested in your venture. There’s a direct relationship between the likelihood of clinical development and the likelihood of attracting investment.

DF: Why do you think so few early-stage therapeutic startups are sustainable?

JC: Flawed or irreproducible science, inexperienced team, lack of capitalization, attracting the wrong investors. Also, novel technologies or new therapeutic modalities take much longer to translate into products. There are just too many unanswered questions because of the novelty. Most companies run out of money just trying to answer those questions.

AM: Yes, first-time academic founders sometimes underestimate the difference between an academic project and an industry project. Academic science is all about following new findings and opening new lines of investigation. That is the antithesis of drug development. Translation is about reduction to practice. Removing as much risk as possible about the technological, biological and clinical aspects. At Nature, we used to place a great deal of emphasis on conceptual novelty. In industry, you need enough novelty to get IP protection but, for everything else, you want corroborating evidence and as little novelty as possible to reduce risk.

DF: You mentioned tech-transfer offices. What kinds of services are you offering them?

AM: TTOs at elite institutions have extensive resources to stress test their portfolios and interface with industry, especially in Boston and San Francisco. But there are a lot of TTOs that are understaffed, underfunded and underrecognized in many parts of the USA and beyond. We help those teams prioritize opportunities and provide them with an independent assessment of the technical quality, clinical potential and commercial interest of projects in their portfolio so they can prioritize which of them to move forward.

JC: Similarly, for foundations and patient organizations funding academic science, the aim is often to move translational projects to the point where they are mature enough to attract private financing. Haystack provides advice on steering projects and can help develop the right strategy for a non-profit organization to maximize the impact of its grants.

DF: What’s your plan for Haystack this year?

JC: We are seeking to get our message out to the wider startup and TTO communities. For the first part of 2025, Haystack is expanding the client base and offering some discounts on services. We’re actively looking to expand our reach beyond the US, so we’d welcome enquiries from ventures across the globe. Anyone interested in working with us can reach out to info@haystacksci.com or visit Haystack’s website.

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

The RESI Europe Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC) finalists are in! This exciting event will feature multiple pitch sessions where finalist companies present their groundbreaking innovations to a panel of investors and industry experts. Each participating company will also have table space in the RESI exhibition hall, providing attendees with opportunities to engage with them directly.

Innovator’s Pitch Challenge Companies at RESI Europe 2025

RESI Europe, co-organized with Biocat, will feature a diverse range of startups, including companies represented by incubators and tech hubs such as the European Innovation Council (EIC), Navarra, and Biocat. The challenge provides a key opportunity for participating startups to gain exposure, connect with investors, and advance their fundraising efforts.

The participating companies are listed above. If you’re attending RESI Europe, be sure to visit their tables in the exhibition hall and catch their pitch sessions. To see these presentations and meet with the companies one-on-one, you can register for the event here.

By Greg Mannix, VP, EMEA Business Development, LSN

RESI has long been a catalyst for early-stage life science companies seeking strategic partnerships and investment. A key component of this mission is fostering relationships with technology hubs around the world, and Europe is no exception. Across the continent, regions and organizations take unique approaches to supporting innovation, but they share a common goal: helping promising startups progress from spinout to commercialization.

At RESI Europe 2025, taking place April 1-3 in Barcelona, three standout technology hubs will be prominently featured:

Region of Catalonia

European Innovation Council

Region of Navarra

Innovative startups from these hubs will showcase their cutting-edge technologies in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC), where they will pitch to a panel of active investors and receive valuable feedback. In addition, these companies will be featured in the IPC exhibition space, where attendees can explore their technologies and engage in meaningful discussions. RESI Europe presents a prime opportunity to connect directly with representatives from these organizations, gaining insights into their programs and the promising startups they support.

With a dynamic mix of investor panels, curated networking, and dedicated showcasing of European innovation, RESI Europe 2025 will be an essential gathering for those looking to tap into the continent’s thriving life science ecosystem.

By Sougato Das, President and COO, Life Science Nation (LSN)

As the provider of the global RESI conference, a critical catalyst for life science startups to meet with investors and in-licensors, we get to learn about life science ecosystems across the world. This includes Ukraine, which is in a unique situation in three areas of life sciences, some of which affects global life sciences R&D.

Firstly, Ukraine was a hotbed of industry-sponsored phase 0 – 3 clinical trials. While the majority of these were big pharma-sponsored, a substantial amount were led by early-stage companies. In the three years preceding the current war, from February 2019 to February 2022, there were 446 such trial starts in Ukraine. In the three years since, that number has dropped to just 55. With its former abundance of treatment-naïve patients, low costs, reliable healthcare provider systems and fast investigator recruitment, Ukraine used to be a favorite for companies seeking clinical PoC.

Secondly, based on late 2020 report from BioUkraine, Ukraine was emerging in the field of organic life sciences R&D. It had 15 life science hubs, 75 life science companies (including affiliate offices of large pharmas), hosted 45 life science conferences and had 12 investment firms. Although more recent statistics are not available, recent estimates conclude 20% of scientists have left the country in the last 3 years.

Finally, a lot has been said in the media recently about rare earth metals (REMs) in Ukraine. Generally, we think of these metals in relation to the energy sector, especially batteries. However, 45% of REMs are used for ceramics and alloys, much of which is used in med tech and medicines (e.g. Lanthanum for kidney disease, Yttrium for cancer, Samarium for bone pain). In med devices, REM ceramics are used in electronic implants and hip replacements, while REMs are used extensively in contrast agents, magnets, electronics, x-rays, lasers and dental implants. This does not just include on-market devices; REMs are increasingly being used for developing new kinds of devices, for example, magnets to fulfill therapeutic use cases that do not have adequate solutions today.

In conclusion, Ukraine was, and could once again be, a promising region for life science innovation and research, as well as a source of unique materials for new devices, diagnostics and medicines. Despite the current situation, Ukraine is working with a number of European nations to ensure their regulations, processes and standards are aligned with Western Europe’s so they can move quickly when the opportunity is there. The intent of this article is to highlight the global interconnectedness of the life science innovation ecosystem in light of current events, which will be showcased at RESI Europe with 250 investors and in-licensors, hundreds of startups and dozens of tech hubs in attendance.

By Sougato Das, President and COO, Life Science Nation (LSN)

The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (aka CDRH aka the folks who approve med devices) had firings a little more than a week ago, continuing from the layoffs at the NIH and CDC. Early signs indicate a reduction of 10% – 15%. Those who lost their jobs included those funded by medical device user fees and not tax-payer dollars. Since the cuts affected probationary employees the most, recent hires to evaluate newer technologies like AI-assisted imaging and digital health are gone, making it hard to imagine approvals for these modalities would not grind to a halt. AdvaMed’s head, Scott Whitaker, conveyed that AdvaMed had sent a letter to HHS in response, emphasizing the importance of AI and related technologies, the patient-facing effects throwing a wrench in the approval machine would have, and the lack of tax-payer savings. This may have been effective, as in breaking news today, the Associated Press reported that some of the fired individuals received calls and messages reversing their dismissals, stating terminations were “rescinded effective immediately.”

Besides staff cuts, there are other changes in FDA CDRH guidances, such as removal of requirements to have demographically diverse clinical trials. If the Trump administration continues to lower the regulatory hurdles required for approval, approval times could accelerate despite reduced staff, assuming further layoffs do not materialize and funds from user fees are made available again. Of course, this could result in products with less safety testing, which could lead to recalls and trust erosion.

The million-dollar (well, actually billion dollar) question is: how will these changes affect seed and series A-B funding for med tech, health tech and AI? Usually, regulatory uncertainty has a dampening effect on the investment climate. Companies may need to hedge their bets by doubling down on fundraising and partnering activity. How many meetings have you had in the last 3 months? How many leads do you have? How many meetings do you need to close your next fundraise? LSN can help you dramatically accelerate your business development. With the largest and most detailed life science investor/in-licensor database and the largest investment conferences (by number of attending investors) in the world, LSN is poised to help get you funded before any potential downturn. Reach us at: resi@lifesciencenation.com

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

With biotech venture capital investment surging by over 33% in 2024 and in-licensing activity remaining strong, optimism is growing in the life science ecosystem. The Therapeutics panel at RESI Europe in Barcelona, taking place at the InterContinental Hotel on April 1, will bring together key investors to explore the evolving landscape of biotech investment and partnerships.

This panel will examine emerging trends and therapeutic breakthroughs, providing insight into the indications and modalities attracting investor interest. Discussions will also highlight the role of venture capital and in-licensing partners in driving innovation, as well as key considerations for biotech companies navigating R&D and scaling operations. Given the high-risk nature of early-stage biotech investment, panelists will share perspectives on how to de-risk opportunities through due diligence and strategic partnerships.

Moderated by Jim McGough of Mid Atlantic Bio Angels, this discussion will feature an esteemed lineup of investor panelists, including Laura Rodriguez of Invivo Partners, Carla Benichou of RV Invest GmbH, and Artemy Shumsky of LongeVC. Their collective expertise will offer a comprehensive look at how investment and collaboration are shaping the future of biotech innovation.

Jim McGough Managing Partner Mid Atlantic Bio Angels (Moderator)	Carla Benichou Senior Investment Analyst RV Invest GmbH
Laura Rodriguez Partner Invivo Partners	Artemy Shumskiy Senior Associate LongeVC

Investment and strategic partnering remain essential in advancing therapeutics that address high unmet medical needs. Whether you are a biotech entrepreneur seeking funding or an investor looking to stay ahead of industry trends, this panel promises valuable insights into the dynamic world of biotech investment.

Join us at RESI Europe to gain firsthand knowledge from top investors and forge meaningful connections that could help propel the next wave of groundbreaking therapies to market.

By Greg Mannix, VP, EMEA Business Development, LSN

When we think of a partnering conference like Redefining Ever Stage of Investment (RESI), we often envision cutting-edge life science startups pitching their technologies to investors and licensing partners – whether through one-on-one meetings or in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC). While this is certainly a key aspect of the event, it’s important to note that about 20% of the scheduled and ad hoc meetings at RESI are between investors themselves!

So, why is RESI such a prime venue for investors from around the world? Because cross-border alliances and syndicates are not just common – they’re becoming essential. Consider these key trends:

• Syndicates are the new normal: Single-investor participation in funding rounds is now rare. More often, deals are made through syndicates, which help spread risk and allow investors to tap into broader networks and expertise.
• Expanding geographic horizons: Investors who restrict their focus to just one region may struggle to compete for the most innovative technologies. As a result, many are looking beyond their comfort zones to find the best opportunities.
• The global capital gap: European companies often find it difficult to secure the capital needed for larger rounds within Europe, creating a growing need to partner with US and Asian investors.

On March 30th, right before RESI Europe in Barcelona, LSN will host an exclusive Investor-only  Networking Event, bringing together investors from North America, Europe, and Asia for an evening of tapas, drinks, and new connections. For more information, contact resi@lifesciencenation.com.