Next Phase Newsletter

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

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

Partnering conferences offer a dynamic environment where innovators, capital investors, and licensing partners converge to explore collaboration opportunities. Amidst the vibrant panels and workshops, one-on-one meetings, and pitch sessions, it’s essential for participants to approach each interaction strategically. RESI is distinctly unique because there is a 50/50 ratio of buy-side partners and sell-side startups at our events. This is the main differentiator for a RESI versus other partnering events, which will typically be 10-15% buy-side partners to sell-side startups. This is driven by LSN’s investor database, that five full-time staff have been curating for over a decade. The LSN team regularly interacts with the 4000 early-stage investors and licensing partners that are in our network, allowing LSN to leverage these relationships and recruit buy-side partners to judge slots for our pitch competitions and use LSN events to source technology assets for their portfolio requirements.

Partnering Conference Dynamics

Assessing the success of a partnering event can be done with multiple metrics, as there are multiple avenues to achieve your goals. Is the investor interested in a follow-up meeting, and potentially initiating due diligence? Will the investor introduce you to other investors who could be a potential fit for you? Can the investor provide you with valuable advice, even if they don’t invest themselves? Are they a potential fit for future rounds, and initiating the relationship now can help move that forward when you are ready? All of these can be considered a success, even if it doesn’t end with cash in your hand from this specific investor or licensing partner.

Importance of Meeting Metrics

Fit as the Core Metric: Prioritize meetings based on alignment with the company’s stage and product. Quality trumps quantity for meaningful collaboration.

Follow-up Meetings: Success is measured by investor interest in follow-up meetings, indicating engagement and potential for ongoing dialogue.

Interest in NDAs: For intellectual property discussions, investors’ willingness to sign NDAs reflects commitment to exploration and idea value acknowledgment.

Referrals and Network Expansion: Referrals broaden the network, signaling positive reception within the industry.

Engagement Beyond Meetings: Meaningful connections extend beyond formal settings. Investor engagement in networking activities signals potential rapport beyond scheduled interactions.

Technology for Meeting Success: The RESI Conference Series utilizes a sophisticated “matching algorithm,” ensuring strategic connections based on compatibility, not random encounters.

Strategic Thinking for Success

Navigating partnering conference meetings requires strategic thinking. Executives must assess meetings aligning with goals and potential collaboration. Metrics such as fit, interest in follow-ups, NDAs, referrals, and engagement gauge success. Partnering conferences offer a fertile ground for critical partnerships, with success dependent on thoughtful consideration of meeting metrics, contributing to strategic growth in the complex landscape of early-stage financing.

By Greg Mannix, Vice President International Business Development, General Manager Europe, LSN

RESI JPM, during JP Morgan week 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.  But RESI, wherever it happens to take place, is always a truly international gathering, and the upcoming edition is no exception. RESI JPM will take place Tuesday, January 9, in person at the historic Marine’s Memorial Club and Hotel, followed by two days of virtual partnering, January 11-12.

As of today, attendees at RESI JPM will be representing 31 countries spanning 5 continents and will be looking to meet with investors and licensing partners from Asia, Europe, and North America. 35% of the investors and Big Pharma/Medtech attendees are from outside the US.

We are also looking forward to welcoming Tech Hubs, Regional Organizations, and Accelerators—the groups that advocate for and support the life sciences industries in their regions—coming from Australia, Canada, Chile, The Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, and the United States.

• The Brisbane Economic Development Agency and the Government of Queensland (Australia) will be supporting a cohort of great companies from Down Under who will be presenting in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge.
• From Spain, the Catalonian biotechnology organization Biocat will be present to drum up interest in our first conference to take place in Spain:  RESI Europe will be in Barcelona from June 17-19, 2024.
• From Canada, regional tech hubs from 3 provinces will be present—British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
• We are also looking forward to seeing The Ganesha Lab accelerator from Chile, supporting innovative technologies from all over Latin America.
• From Japan, Life Science Incubation Council, a newly formed consortium to support the life sciences sector in Japan for global partnership and collaboration will be in attendance.
• From Singapore, Enterprise Singapore, a government agency dedicated to supporting the growth of Singapore-based companies will be at RESI.

At LSN we believe in bringing people together from around the globe to tear down barriers to achieve a common goal of supporting the life sciences. Welcome to all our international attendees this January!