Hot AI Mandate: Early-stage VC Invests in Consumer-facing Medtech & Digital Health Technologies

25 Jun

Established in 2017, a venture capital fund is a new addition to its sister fund, a $60M+ venture capital partnership. The firm is focused on companies that contribute to the delivery of “Delightful Moments”, in other words technologies that enhance the human experience and contribute to their well-being. For initial investment, the firm will invest $100-500K and will reserve some funds for follow-on investment. The firm invests mainly in Seed to Series A rounds and often acts as the first institutional investor. The firm has offices in USA and Western Europe, and expanded into Western Europe in early 2019. Currently, the firm is focused on investing in companies based in the USA and Western Europe.

The firm is interested in companies dedicated to the “technological vectors of happiness”. Such technologies include genetics, microbiome, personal pharmaceuticals/diagnostics, VR/AR, consumer-facing medtech or digital health technologies, etc. Initially, the firm did not invest in traditional biopharmaceuticals or medical devices, but the firm has expanded their interests and now actively seeking opportunities in therapeutics and devices with a focus on early-stage, pre-IND companies.

The firm is open to working with all types of management teams and has no specific management requirements. They could lead the round at seed stage but typically syndicate with other investors for Series A. The firm will take an active role in supporting their companies with needed guidance and resources.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email resi@lifesciencenation.com.

RESI Partnering Week Agenda

24 Jun

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

claire

Life Science Nation (LSN) returns with RESI Partnering Week, September 13-17! RESI Partnering Week will feature three events, including Digital RESI September (9/13 – 9/15), RESI AI (9/16 – 9/17), and RESI Longevity (9/16 – 9/17). We are excited to announce the agenda for the 5-day partnering experience:

 

  Digital RESI September
  Monday
Sept.13		 Tuesday
Sept.14		 Wednesday
Sept.15
10 AM EDT Medical Devices  Asia Cross Border Corporate VC
11 AM EDT IPC Session #1 IPC Session #4  
12 PM EDT Seed Funds Tales from the Road Angels & Family Offices
1 PM EDT IPC Session #2 IPC Session #5  
2 PM EDT Big Pharma Mental & Behavioral Health IPC Session #8
4 PM EDT IPC Session #3 IPC Session #6 IPC Session #9
5 PM EDT   IPC Session #7 IPC Session #10
  RESI AI RESI Longevity
  Thursday
Sept.16		 Friday
Sept.17
10 AM EDT Healthcare Communications Social Isolation & Loneliness Accelerated Pharma Development Health & Homecare
11 AM EDT Sensory Wellness Medical Accountability & Adherence
12 PM EDT IPC Session #1 IPC Session #2
1 PM EDT IPC Session #1 IPC Session #2
2 PM EDT Reproductive Wellness Diagnostic Wearables
3 PM EDT Late Breaking Late Breaking
4 PM EDT Healthcare Systems and Infrastructure Late Breaking Precision Medicine Late Breaking

Digital RESI September will feature panels and workshops highlighting a broad range of topics, including different investor types and relevant industry trends. RESI panels will feature active investors and strategic partners to discuss their perspectives and insights about investments, early-stage fundraising, and more. RESI AI and RESI Longevity feature panels highlighting early-stage partnerships between startups and their investors. The panels will center around the secrets to a successful partnership, with spotlights on companies working within specific sub-sectors and indications.

In addition to panels, RESI Partnering Week features the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC), RESI’s take on virtual company presentations featuring multiple live investor Q&A sessions, which has quickly become popular among all RESI attendees as a unique and differentiated way to engage with novel innovations.

Apply for RESI IPC
Sept.13-15		 Apply for RESI AI IPC
Sept.16-17		 Apply for RESI Longevity IPC
Sept.16-17

Whether you are a fundraising entrepreneur, investor or strategic partner seeking new deal flow, or a service provider offering valuable products and services in the early-stage life sciences ecosystem, you do not want to miss the opportunity to join the upcoming RESI Partnering Week. Super Early Bird rates apply until July 9, so sign up today to save $100!

Introducing the RESI Investor Program

24 Jun

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

Investors are enthusiastically leveraging digital partnering to seek quality deal flow for potential investment, strategic partnership, in-licensing, and more. The new RESI Investor Program allows our global investor network an opportunity to vote for, support, and participate in the growth of Life Science Nation (LSN), RESI Partnering Week, and the early-stage community within life science and healthcare. RESI Investor Program participants can leverage LSN’s capability of sourcing high quality, under-the-radar companies to enhance deal flow.

LSN will deliver companies that are a fit for your mandates, as well as help limited partnerships for new initiatives, round out deal syndicates, or find partners for new funds. This program allows participants to leverage LSN’s ability to connect the dots with both buyers and sellers in the early-stage life science arena.

Through its products, services, and data, LSN acts as a match-making service – connecting companies to investors and strategic partners who are a fit for their product and stage of development. It is our hope you’ll find value in the new program. LSN values your partnership and wants to help further your investment theme and LSN’S mission – to advance deals that save lives.

Saving Drug Development One Nanoformulation at a Time

24 Jun

Dr. Kay Olmstead

 Interview with Dr. Kay Olmstead, CEO of Nano PharmaSolutions

By Rory McCann, Marketing Manager & Conference Producer, LSN

Nano PharmaSolutions took home the 3rd place prize at Digital RESI June’s Innovator’s Pitch Challenge! They presented in the Novel Drug Delivery pitch session on Wednesday, June 9th, alongside four other pitching companies. We connected with CEO, Dr. Kay Olmstead, to discuss Nano PharmaSolutions’ place in the market as a disruptive technology solving issues associated with drug insolubility, and how they’ve navigated the early stage.

Rory McCann (RM): Hi Kay, Congratulations on being selected as an Innovator’s Pitch Challenge winner at Digital RESI June. Tell us a little about yourself and Nano PharmaSolutions. 

Dr. Kay Olmstead (KO): Thanks for the good news, Rory. I have 32 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry with 19 issued patents and 5 FDA approvals on the 20+ drugs I’ve developed. I came out of retirement to set up this company to solve the number one problem in the drug industry today: insolubility of drugs. Over 70% of new drug candidates and 40% of approved drugs are not soluble in water, causing low absorption into our bodies. Nano drug delivery is solving this problem somewhat, but it uses polymers and lipids to generate nano particles. We develop a way to generate nanoparticles without using any chemicals or solvent – no one else can do that. And we do it faster.

RM: What is the need in the marketplace you’re filling and how have you found a solution to that need?

KO: Only about 1 in 1,000 drug candidates gets approved by the FDA after 8-12 years of development time. The biggest failure happens in preclinical phase; and improper formulation of insoluble drug is the primary reason for this preclinical failure. Drug companies can’t do too much formulation development at early stage because they don’t have a lot of active drug. Our technology is disruptive. We solve this problem because we only need 7 grams of active drug to develop the optimum nanoformulation for our clients, and we do it in 7 short weeks. We return 3 grams of their drug candidate as nanoformulation so they can quickly perform IND-enabling in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies. 

RM: How did you go about building your team? What considerations did you consider when developing the people behind Nano PharmaSolutions?

KO: We started the company with three co-founders with complementary skill sets; I have extensive pharmaceutical experience and our CTO, Dr. Koh, is a material scientist specializing in nanotechnology. Our COO, Mr. Lee, is great in organization and business development. We live the company values of integrity, compassion, and ingenuity. We look for people with the same value who want to make drugs better for patients. The skill set required for our work is different from routine pharmaceutical companies, as we use material science in pharmaceutics. We can teach people the skill sets, so we look for the right characters and values in our new hires.

RM: What have been some of the biggest hurdles you’ve faced with early-stage fundraising? How have you tackled some of these challenges?

KO: Our technology of evaporating drug to capture it back as nanoparticle is rather out-of-this world. We call it “beam-me-up-Scotty” technology. The messaging was a challenge to some angels and VCs because we are so different from others. Now we have traction, NSF SBIR grant approval, and media coverage; we are getting the attention of investors.  

RM: What’s next for Nano PharmaSolutions? Where do you see the company in 1 year? 5 years? 10?

KO: We are entering into a strategic partnership with a GMP manufacturer, and we will be making clinical samples for our clients by the end of 2022. We anticipate several patents to be issued soon. Our revenue model predicts us to breakeven next year and $100M revenue by 2026.

Congratulations to Nano PharmaSolutions and all our pitching companies. To learn more about RESI Partnering Week and get involved with the Innovator’s Pitch Challenges taking place September 13-17, visit www.resipartneringweek.com. Apply for the Digital RESI September Innovator’s Pitch Challenge! Save $100 when you register before July 9!

Hot Investor Mandate: Corporate Venture Arm of Large Company Is Interested in Devices, Diagnostics, and Digital Health Related to Infection Prevention & Control

24 Jun

A corporate venture arm of a large company specializing in infection prevention technology is interested in strategic investments and acquisitions, spanning benchtop proof of concept to businesses selling products into the market. Within the area of infection prevention and control, the firm will consider digital health, diagnostics and medical device technologies that relate to infection, but will not invest in pharmaceutical therapeutics. Investments can range from less than $1M, up to enterprise scale acquisitions. The firm Investments will invest globally.

The firm has a focus on digital health, diagnostics and medical device technologies that address infection prevention and control, with a focus on healthcare acquired infection.

The firm will only make strategic investments that align with the company’s vision. The firm is an active investor, and will typically take a board seat after investing.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Investor Mandate: Newly Founded VC With Western Europe & USA Offices Invest Broadly Across All Life Science Sectors, With Strong Interests in Platform Technologies

24 Jun

A newly founded venture capital firm headquartered in Europe with an additional office based in the USA is actively seeking investment opportunities within life sciences and healthcare sectors, with a focus on early stage. Initial investments can range from $100K – 3M, and largely varies by deal. The firm typically invests in the form of equity, and may take less equity in exchange for preemptive or pro-rata rights. The firm will consider global opportunities, but focuses on USA and Europe-based companies.

The firm is interested in various opportunities within therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, and digital health. In therapeutics, the firm is excited about platform technologies (especially in oncology), DNA repair, and novel drug delivery mechanisms. Within devices, technologies that integrate or combine new technologies such as robotics, smart devices, IoT, and imaging are areas of interest. In diagnostics, point of care diagnostics technologies that can substantially transform the current standard of care are of interest. Lastly, within digital health, the firm is interested in telehealth, novel digital interventions, and any technology that successfully leverages AI to improve patient outcomes and clinical workflow. The firm is mostly stage and indication agnostic, but tend to stay away from cardiovascular and CNS indications.

The firm has no specific company or management team requirements. The firm seeks to be a very active, hands-on investor and can support their portfolio companies on their operations, scalability, regulatory strategy, and more. The firm has a growing advisory board that companies can seek to leverage. The firm can act as either a lead or co-investor.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Investor Mandate: Strategic Arm of a Large Health System Makes Seed & Later-Stage Investments in USA-Based Medtech and Digital Heath Companies

24 Jun

A strategic venture capital arm and innovation group of a large health system manages both a seed fund as well as a later-stage corporate venture fund, both dedicated to medtech and healthcare IT. In addition, the group also has an incubator and innovation group that looks to develop and integrate IP generated internally and externally that can be leveraged by the health system. Seed investments usually range from $100k – $500k with additional capital reserved for follow on investments, typically allocating up to $1.5M over the life of the investment. Later stage investments are usually in the range of $1M-$2M. The group is flexible in terms of structure but typically refers convertible notes for seed deals and straight equity for later-stage investments. The firm may lead investments or invest with a syndicate and looks to be active in portfolio companies’ development and add value at the board level as well as through integration into the health system.

The firm is exclusively focused on the medtech and digital health/healthcare IT sectors. The group is fairly opportunistic in these areas, but looks for technologies that can be leveraged by the health system. Both pre-revenue and pre-FDA approval devices, as well as commercial/revenue-generating companies, will be considered. The firm has no preference for regulatory pathway and has a particular interest in the cardio space.

The firm has historically focused on startups in the midwestern United States, however, is looking more broadly and open to companies across the U.S. The group favors strong management teams that are open to working closely together.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

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