Next Phase Newsletter

By Karen Deyo, Director of Product, LSN

If you are a fundraising company in the life sciences, you probably know that the second week of January is the biggest opportunity of the year for partnering. That’s when the JP Morgan Healthcare Week takes place in San Francisco. If you are early-stage, you will probably know that the RESI conference (Jan 9-11) is the event that week that brings together the most investors and licensing partners focused on your stage of development and fundraising. And now, you can even attend virtually if you are not able to travel to San Francisco for the in-person conference and all the activities going on that week.  So, having been a part of RESI and JPM Week for many years now, I want to share some tips and strategies that you will hopefully find useful leading up to this crucial week.

1. If you can attend RESI in person, there is still time to book many meetings. The key to getting the most out of RESI is to reach out to as many investors as possible (over 500 will be attending), send a compelling message, and follow-up several times leading up to the conference. Your meeting request should contain key information that investors want to know about your company, like
   a. Introduce yourself and your company
   b. Explain the product
   c. What unmet need does it address
   d. What the competition is like and where it stands
   e. Major landmarks/achievements
   f. Current financing needs and what will be used for

2. Reach out to investors/licensing partners by email and LinkedIn leading up to JPM. A great way to get a target list of investors with contact information is to upgrade to Premier Partnering at RESI, whether you are attending in person or virtually, and carry out a targeted outreach campaign.

3. A good option to get the most bang for your buck if you will be in San Francisco for JPM week is the 1-day registration at RESI for in-person meetings on January 9th, and upgrade to Premier Partnering in order to get that target list of investors with their contact information. This way you can book meetings before, during and after RESI by using the RESI Partnering Platform, email and LinkedIn. More information www.resiconference.com

We are here to help, so if you have any questions, please reach out to resi@lifesciencenation.com

By Caitlin Dolegowski, Marketing Manager, LSN

The RESI Conference at the Marines Memorial Club and Hotel is coming up on January 9, 2024. The year’s largest life science partnering event, J.P. Morgan Week will gather in San Francisco. RESI anticipates 500+ early-stage investors, along with 500+ early-stage startup companies spanning the silos of drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health. In addition to partnering RESI JPM 2024 will feature 56 companies in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge, Investor Panels, Industry-Expert Workshops, and a Global Family Office BioForum. Early-stage fundraising companies will not want to miss the opportunity to kick off 2024 by being involved in this event.

Life Science Nation is early-stage focused and we create RESI conferences with our clientele in mind. RESI attracts many different types of attendees, and to accommodate that we have a few different registration options. Read through the graph below to determine the best registration option for you.

For additional help in finding your registration type, reach out to the business development team at salescore@lifesciencenation.com to book a meeting so we can assist in figuring out the right registration type for you!

By Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Science Nation, Creator of the RESI Conference Series

Life Science Nation (LSN) will continue to drive innovation and breakthroughs throughout 2024. LSN’s Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) partnering events present a host of exciting opportunities for healthcare professionals, investors, and entrepreneurs to connect and collaborate in the healthcare arena. LSN events are aimed at fostering partnerships and driving the industry forward. LSN will feature five RESI partnering events that will shape the year ahead.  If you are a startup, the number one directive is to get out of your region and get into the global market and find capital investors and licensing partners that are a fit for your stage of development and product. The RESI partnering events allow you to get right into the middle of the North American, European, and Asia Pacific investor ecosystems.

Life Science Nation will kick off 2024 with RESI JPM, next week, January 9, in person and on January 10-11 virtual! This hybrid conference will take place at the Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel in San Francisco. This conference is held during JP Morgan week and takes place in the major life science hub that is San Francisco and will, of course, have a great concentration of the hottest technologies being developed in the Bay Area and the plethora of VCs, Angels, Family Offices and Pharma/Medtech giants that help to fuel this amazing ecosystem.

LSN will follow RESI JPM, with RESI South, in partnership with a newly formed coalition, SELifeSci, consisting of life science associations representing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. RESI South 2024 will occur via a hybrid format, with March 25th being in-person at the Whitley Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, and the 26th and 27th with virtual partnering only.

Next up, RESI Europe Barcelona, a strategic collaboration with Biocat, headquartered in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and Biotechgate, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Biocat, a catalyzing organization dedicated to transforming the BioRegion of Catalonia into a premier life sciences and health innovation ecosystem in Europe, and Biotechgate, a pioneer in curating and marketing a global business development database tailored for the life science industry, join forces with LSN to bring the RESI global matching platform back to Europe. This conference will be held in person on June 17 at the Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona, followed by two days of virtual partnering, June 18-19.

In September, Life Science Nation is back in Boston – a hub of life science and healthcare innovation, at the Westin Copley, in person on September 25 and virtually, September 26-27. RESI Boston is in the hometown of LSN and is one of the premier partner events of the year.  Companies from all over the world come to RESI Boston to check out the global hub of life science and connect with the most dynamic healthcare ecosystem on the planet.  This event has been running for over a decade and is attended by the who’s who of the early-stage capital investment and licensing partners.

RESI Asia is planned for November, please stay tuned for an up-and-coming announcement on where this event will be taking place.

RESI 2024 Series

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By Karen Deyo, VP of Product, Israel BD, LSN

Life Science Nation (LSN)‘s RESI JPM 2024 is less than two weeks away! For this conference, the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC) is especially popular and we are featuring 56 presenting startups across 14 sessions, each focusing on a specific sector/subsector. The LSN team has been busy recruiting active investors and industry experts to join the pitch judge panels. The investor and industry experts were invited to sessions based on their experience, investment interest and expertise. The judges will listen to 4 minutes of company pitches and have 8 to 9 minutes to engage in Q&A and provide feedback to the pitching companies.

Below is a list of IPC pitch judges at RESI JPM in San Francisco:

Chris Aleong Vice President BioIdeations	Dozie Amuzie Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation @ JLABS Canada Johnson & Johnson Innovation	Joshua Barney Member Barrington Angels
Samir Batra Managing Partner & Founder HIP (Health Innovation Pitch)	Marianne Bjordal Partner 3B Future Health Fund	Zac Hann Senior Associate LYFE Capital
Steve Curtis Director, New Ventures BrightEdge	Paolo Di Giorgio CEO and Managing Director Angelini Ventures	Felix Breyer Associate Arix Bioscience
Karen Drexler Angel Investor, Advisor Astia Angels	Ruben Flores-Saaib Academic Innovations and Partnerships Lead General Inception	Dimitra Georganopoulou General Partner Qral Ventures
Gary Gershony Partner BayMed Venture Partners	Tom Gibbs Director Debiopharm Innovation Fund	Janelle Goulard Director of Health Investment Pangaea Ventures
Tai Harada Partner Fast Track Initiative	David Hendren Managing Director Augmentum Advisors LLC	Dave Hood West Coast Outreach Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC)
Guanghui Hu Venture Partner & CEO Viva BioInnovator	Sharon Huang Associate Tau Ventures	Jochen Hurlebaus Head of Digital Health Innovation Roche Diagnostics
Elena Itskovich President Nest Catalyst	Enmi Kendall General Partner Healthy Ventures	Don Lin Co-Founder, Managing Director Guoqian Venture Capital Investment
Stephanie Marrus Director UCSF Entrepreneurship Center	Terri Mead Founder Class Bravo Ventures	Nick Mourlas Head of JLABS @ San Diego Johnson & Johnson Innovation
Sonal Panda Principal Tau Ventures	Rhiya Pau Associate Laerdal Million Lives Fund	Jojo Platt US Partnerships Lead Corundum Neuroscience
Rena Rosenberg Partner Robin Hood Ventures	Alexander Schubert Partner SciFounders	Parul Singh Partner Initialized Capital
Anish Srivastava Managing Partner Telosity Ventures	Jeff Stinson Director HealthTech Arkansas	Scott Thielman Life Science Co-Chair – Northwest Keiretsu Forum
Jeff Trost Managing Partner Laerdal Million Lives Fund	Thomas Vogelsong Investor/Life Science Advisor KYTO Technology and Life Science	Garrett Vygantas Co-Founder & Managing Partner Riverine Ventures
Sally Wang Venture Partner Viva BioInnovator	Kyoko Watanabe Managing Director DEFTA Partners	Aaron Welch Associate SymBiosis Capital Management
Hong Wen Partner Shanghai Healthcare Capital	Ryan Witt Member Tech Coast Angels	Jun Xiao Vice President Life Science Angels
Ronald Dorenbos Principal BioFrontline Ltd.	David Zarling Investor Family Office Based in California

By Erika Wu, Business Development Manager, Global Tech Hubs, LSN

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is working with Life Science Nation‘s RESI conference during JPM Healthcare Week 2024 to feature 10 startups in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC). This long-term partnership between the NIH and LSN expands broader than the RESI conferences. In September 2022, NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA) invited 40+ life science entrepreneurs from their Healthy Aging Start-Up Challenge to participate in LSN’s entrepreneurial educational across two digital and two in-person sessions. These entrepreneurs were taught how to manage their global investor target lists and fundraising campaigns and engaged in interactive sessions to practice their tagline and elevator pitches. These entrepreneurs continued to attend RESI throughout 2022 and 2023 to meet with other CEOs, investors, and strategic partners, and a new cohort from NIH will be participating in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC) at RESI JPM 2024. The excitement to partner again and deepen community involvement reflects a growing awareness of the transformative power that collaboration can have on startups in the early-stage life science arena.

From the National Institute of Health: NIH Is the largest funder of life science research and development in the world. In 2023, America’s SEED fund (the Small Business Programs) at NIH supported the development of nearly 1,400 products with over $1.3 billion of non-dilutive funding and a strong suite of commercialization assistance programming.  NIH’s portfolio includes all technology types, from research tools to diagnostics to therapeutic solutions, addressing all aspects of human health. 

At RESI JPM in San Francisco, 10 of the most innovative small businesses from the NIH portfolio will highlight their life science solutions, from at-home or remote diagnostic and monitoring solutions to improving the function of our most basic organ systems and organelles. Each of these companies has received direct mentoring from an NIH Entrepreneur in Residence, and several have received regulatory or reimbursement consultations from NIH’s SEED (Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development) office.  

By Momo Yamamoto, Investor Research Analyst, LSN

Life Science Nation(LSN) recently hosted a webinar with three investors that will be attending RESI for the first time at the upcoming RESI JPM, in-person on Tuesday, January 9 at the Marines’ Memorial Hotel followed by virtual partnering, January 10-11. LSN is pleased to introduce James Feng, Partner of MSA Capital, Leah Villegas, Managing Partner of Aquillius Ventures, and Matias Serebrinsky, Co-Founder and General Partner of PsyMed Ventures. This webinar provides insight into the different focuses in early-stage innovation spaces.

 Life Science Nation’s research team works continuously not only to add new investor attendees to our RESI conferences but also integrate them into our early-stage ecosystem. These investors will be part of our investor database and we look forward to fostering relationships between them and the companies in our ecosystem that are a fit for their investment mandate. PsyMed Ventures joins RESI with a lens on mental health and more specifically “frontier technologies” and how they define this concept.  MSA Capital is an international firm with an arm in healthcare based in China and investing in seed to series B, writing checks between $1-25M. James, with MSA, provides insight into their interest in early-stage companies tackling aging-related diseases. Aquillius Ventures is the investment arm of their innovation hub located in San Diego, and is looking to connect with innovative biotech and medical device companies. Their main fund does not require companies to go through their accelerator program and offers a wide range of resources. 

Thank you to these investors for their time and informative discussion on what they hope to accomplish next month at RESI JPM and what they are looking for when building relationships with early-stage startups. We are excited to have them join us at RESI. Click here to access the full video.  

Leah Villegas, Managing Partner, Aquillius Ventures

Aquillius Ventures is the venture arm of Aquillius, an innovation hub headquartered in San Diego, CA for life science, medtech, and technology companies. The firm invests in Pre-Seed and Seed stage biotech, device, and ag-tech companies in the U.S.

James Feng, Partner, MSA Capital

MSA Capital is a global investment firm founded in 2014 and headquartered in Beijing, China that focuses on private venture and growth assets. The firm manages over $2B USD and invests in highly innovative and disruptive companies in the biotechnology, enterprise-facing core technology, and consumer sectors.

Matias Serebrinsky, Co-Founder & General Partner, PsyMed Ventures

PsyMed Ventures is a venture capital fund founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, CA. The firm invests in Pre-Seed and Seed life science and healthcare companies that focus on mental health and wellness.

Joey Wong, Senior Investor Research Analyst, Hong Kong BD, LSN

RESI JPM 2024 is less than a month away. For this highly anticipated conference, LSN’s Investor Research Team has curated a lineup of 7 panels covering a wide range of topics relevant to early-stage investments and innovations.

Some of these panels will highlight specific leading or emerging sectors/ indications, such as Early-Stage Therapeutics, Medical Devices and Mental and Behavioral health, aiming to discuss cutting edge innovations, latest investment trends and the future outlook in these areas. Other panels will focus on different types of investors or strategics partners, such as Big Pharma, Health System Partners, Cross Border Investments and Family Offices, featuring active investors from corresponding groups to shed light on their investment approaches and strategies, recent deals or activities, the roles their play in the ecosystem, and how companies can seek to work with group like theirs, etc.

We are honored to be joined by a diverse group of panelists from around the globe, each bringing unique backgrounds and experiences. Through organizing these panels, our goal is to foster communications, bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and investors/strategic partners and assist founders and CEOs in navigating their fundraising and business development journey in this highly competitive landscape. If you are around for JPM, don’t miss the opportunity to hear from and connect with seasoned investors and executives at these RESI panels!

Here are the speakers for RESI JPM 2024:

Brent Ahrens General Partner Canaan Partners	Jing Bao Partner Shanghai Healthcare Capital	Tara Bishop Founder & Managing Director Black Opal Ventures
Scarlett Chen Managing Partner Verge Health Tech Fund	William Dai Founding Partner ShangBay Capital	Jakob Dupont Executive Partner, Private Equity Sofinnova Investments
Alex Fair Managing Partner Medstartr Ventures	Marissa Fayer U.S. Partner Goddess Gaia Ventures	Les Funtleyder Healthcare Portfolio Manager E Squared Capital
Viral Gandhi Principal KCK MedTech	Lindsay Hoover Managing Partner JLS Fund	Jochen Hurlebaus Head of Digital Health Innovation Roche Diagnostics
Marc Jones CEO Altoida Inc	Ekaterine Kortkhonjia Sr. Director, Early Innovation Partnering Johnson & Johnson Innovation	Michael Langer Founder & Managing Partner T.Rx Capital
Linda Li Partner, Digital Health Cleveland Clinic Ventures	James Mayer Partner, CABHI Ventures Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI)	Jeffrey Moore President MP Healthcare Venture Management (MPH)
Miguel Moreno Garcia Director of Research SENS Research Foundation	Ahmed Mousa Business Development Executive Tamer Group	Priya Oberoi Managing General Partner Goddess Gaia Ventures
John Pennett Angel Investor Mid Atlantic Bio Angels	Rachel Rea Senior Director, Business Development Stryker	Liridon Rrushaj Director, Venture Investments OSF Ventures
Dennis Sacha Principal IAG Capital Partners	Diana Saraceni Founder, Managing Director Panakes Partners	Matias Serebrinsky Co-Founder & General Partner PsyMed Ventures
Ashim Subedee Director, Catalyst Office Division of Research Innovation and Ventures (DRIVe)	Prasad Sunkara Board of Directors NuFund Venture Group	Lauren Tyra Chief Scientific Officer Green Park & Golf Ventures
Akili Wallace Director and Deal Lead in Business Development Transactions Amgen	Tyler Wanke Investor Wanke Family Office	Anita Watkins Managing Director Rex Health Ventures
Dana Watt Principal Breakout Ventures	Tad Weems Managing Director Agilent Technologies	Andrew Wong Global Head of Bayer CoLabs Bayer
	Shann Yu Associate Director AbbVie Ventures