Hot Investor Mandate: China-Based Enterprise Seeks to Partner with Medtech Companies Across All Stages, with Strongest Interests in Class III Implantable Devices

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A high-tech enterprise headquartered in China focuses on the R&D, manufacturing and sales of implantable medical devices. The firm is actively seeking external opportunities for investment and other types of strategic partnerships. With regards to investment, the firm will generally invest several millions of dollars per deal. The firm is open to global opportunities.

The firm is interested in expanding their business by investing and partnering with medical device companies. The firm is not interested in therapeutics, diagnostics, or digital health. The firm is most interested in Class III implantable medical devices, but will not exclude Class I or II. The firm is open to working with companies across all stages of development.

The firm has 2 main focuses within medical devices, according their stage of development:

(1) Products at early development stage: The firm is open to investing in companies at the idea-level, or those with a prototype that have not yet started clinical trials. In addition to direct equity investment in these stages, the firm is also interested in accelerating the path to market by helping with product development, regulatory and preclinical tests. The firm can act as a lead or co-investor.

(2) Products at later stage: For products that have demonstrated efficacy through clinical trials with patients, the firm is open to exploring beyond direct investment, such as joint venture, licensing, co-development, etc. The firm can provide strategic value to these companies and also assist with China market entry.

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 Established Joint Venture Fund Supports Therapeutics, Devices, and Diagnostics Companies for Up to $20M Investment

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An active life sciences accelerator that funds, supports and advances life science technologies from early development through clinical proof-of-concept recently established a joint venture fund to support early-stage innovation. The firm’s experienced leadership team works with scientists and entrepreneurs to provide active mentorship, financing solutions and operational guidance to increase the probability of success in early drug development. The firm has access to capital to support companies from seed investment through Series A and B financings through the firm’s internal resources and the joint venture fund.

The size of initial seed investment can range from $0.5M to $1.5M. The subsequent Series A investments will be sized to get through preclinical and IND-enabling work and/or through a clinical development study and can range between $8M-$20M, with flexibility to syndicate with investors for larger rounds. For more mature companies that don’t require a seed round or the need to do complete activities/studies prior to a Series A, the fund can invest directly as a Series A investment along with participation in related Series B investments.  Lastly, this new fund is part of the accelerator’s partner’s umbrella of funds, which can support companies in later-stage private/mezzanine/crossover financings, debt financings, and IPO/follow-on public offerings. The firm is open to global opportunities.

The firm and the newly established fund support opportunities across all therapeutic areas and drug modalities (small molecule, peptides, antibodies, genetic technologies, cell therapy, etc.).  Additionally, open to technologies beyond drug therapeutics, including medical devices, diagnostics and emerging healthtech opportunities (digital health, telemedicine, enabling technologies utilizing AI/ML, etc.). Founder and entrepreneur friendly, supportive of first-time CEOs, and works side by side to drive value inflections with the goal to optimize program development and successful outcomes.

The firm is open to working with all types of management teams, including first time entrepreneurs. The firm works hands-on with its portfolio companies by bringing a powerful network, access to resources and expertise to support their growth. The firm prefers to lead but is open to participating with likeminded co-investors to form syndicates.

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

Hot Investor Mandate: Cross-Border Biotech Sector Fund with Incubator and CRO Businesses Invests in Seed Stage Therapeutics & Diagnostics Companies

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A biotech sector fund with headquarters in China is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments housed by modern laboratories in an artistically designed building. The firm works with top ten largest global pharmaceutical companies and small to medium sized US and Europe-based businesses in studies of gene-to-structure, in vitro and in vivo assays, target ID, ADME, animal models, and more.

The firm can allocate from $200,000 to $800,000 of equity capital in seed round companies and can make investments ranging from $1 to $10 million in series A companies. The firm looks to tailor its incubator and CRO services to the needs of its partners, helping them to reach key value-added milestones. The firm will consider opportunities based in China and North America, companies within a strong China angle involvement is their sweet spot. The firm is actively seeking in-licensing opportunities and plans to make 10-12 investments next year but is flexible.

The firm focuses mostly on therapeutics, while the firm is also open to Diagnostics. The firm can utilize its CRO services to advance portfolio company’s products into or through clinical trials. The firm is currently most interested in small molecule first-in-class drugs. The firm is opportunistic in terms of subsector and indication. For therapeutics, the firm is open to invest from super early-stage to pre-clinical stage. The firm will not invest in Medical Devices Healthcare IT companies.

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

Hot Investor Mandate: USA-Based VC Firm Invests in Early-Stage Diagnostics and Life Science Research Tools

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A venture capital firm in the USA focuses on early-stage diagnostics, life science research tools, and biotech-related companies. The firm’s target initial investment size is $500K-$1M, and the firm has made one investment so far. The firm prefers to act as the co-investor with other types of investors such as strategic partners. The firm invests in companies that are based in the US. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.

In the life sciences, the firm is currently seeking to invest in early-stage diagnostics, life science research tools, and biotech-related companies. The firm will invest in a limited number of therapeutic opportunities. The firm also has interests in other technology fields. The firm is opportunistic in terms of subsectors and indications. The firm will consider investing in companies that have strong intellectual property protection and provide barriers to competitive entry. The firm also seeks companies with potential large addressable markets, which typically have the potential to generate at least $100M of annual revenues.

The firm seeks a reliable and experienced management team that can bring the concept to market. The firm may take a board seat in applicable cases. The firm aims fundraising CEOs that are driven to deliver exceptional investment returns to both investors and management teams.

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

Digital RESI June 2020: Innovation Challenge Finalists Announced!

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

claireOur 3-day Digital RESI June Conference is coming up in less than 3 weeks, and we are very excited to announce our Innovation Challenge finalists. With a diverse representation across therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health, these companies were selected on the basis of innovative technology, strong management team, clear pathway to commercialization, and other positive factors that demonstrated high growth potential.

This will be our second time organizing a “digital” Innovation Challenge, and each company will have a dedicated webpage as part of our virtual conference agenda. These pages will feature a virtual poster and any non-confidential materials they would like to share with the conference attendees. Attendees will be able to vote for their favorite technologies during the 3-day span, and the Top 3 winners will be announced at the end of the conference and featured on our weekly LSN newsletter of 36,000 subscribers on Thursday.

We would like to thank all applicants for their interest in the upcoming RESI and our Innovation Challenge. Congratulations to the selected finalists – please see their clickable logos below!

Therapeutics

Medical Devices

Diagnostics

Digital Health

Get Ready for Successful Partnering Meetings

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By Gregory Mannix, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

Partnering for Digital RESI June is up and running, and you have your company and personal profiles refined, updated and uploaded to the platform. You are diligently identifying the investors who are the best fit for your technology and stage of development and have begun to request a lot of meetings with the 400 investors and strategic partners who will be participating. You will soon start to get the first confirmations of meetings and you will be following up and sending out new requests over the next 3 weeks to get as many meetings booked as possible for June 8th-10th.

Now you need to start preparing for those important meetings.  Begin to prepare your meetings early to be as ready as possible when RESI begins. Your goal is to make enough of an impression in that 30-minute meeting on each of your potential investors that you get a commitment to have a next meeting. Here are some tips on how to make the most out of those crucial 30 minutes:

1. Research the Investor Firm

Try to understand the investment firm with whom you are meeting. Typically, there is a lot of information on the firm’s website about their mission and philosophy, as well as their portfolio of companies in which they have invested. This information is key to understanding how your company might fit in. Take notes of the reasons you see a potential to work together that you can bring up during the meeting.

2. Research the person you are meeting with

You will know in advance who you are meeting with from each of the investor firms. Be sure to learn all you can about the person you will be meeting with. One important thing to discover is the background and experience of your meeting counterpart. If you see that they happen to have a deep background in your particular area of technology, you might focus your pitch differently than if they have a background in finance and business.

3. Prepare your elevator pitch

For a 30-minute meeting, it is crucial to get the investor’s attention and interest in a concise, clear pitch that highlights all of the key elements of your company, without going into deep and lengthy technical descriptions that will eat up your time. Focus on what is important and differentiates your technology or team. Let the conversation flow naturally. Engaging the investor in a discussion rather than running through your slides will often help retain investor interest.

4. Have back-up slides on hand

That doesn’t mean you are not prepared to go into more detail if you are asked a specific question. Have your slides prepared that you can easily access in case you need to explain your asset’s mechanism of action in more detail or your data achieved to date that you may have summarized in your initial pitch. You can never have too many backup slides to address questions that might come up during your meeting.

5. Bring a second attendee to meetings

You will be very focused on making your pitch and answering any questions that come up, so you likely will not be taking notes during the meeting. If you are having back-to-back meetings, it will be extremely challenging to remember all of the comments and questions from investors during each of your meetings, but that information is really important for your follow up. Having a colleague on hand to take good notes at the meetings is a really good way to be sure you don’t miss anything.

6. Prepare a binder with your notes for each meeting

You will hopefully be needing your laptop for multiple meetings during RESI, some of them back-to-back, so I highly recommend having a paper back-up of your pre-meeting notes on each of your meetings that you can quickly reference between meetings. A binder with your pre-prepared notes and space to take notes during the meeting will be very useful.

7. Have questions prepared in advance

Most of your meeting with a new potential investor will be about presenting your company and yourself, and answering questions from your investor counterpart, but you shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to ask questions that you may have from your pre-meeting research. Questions can be about what role the investor will play in your company if they decide to make an investment—such as, do they take a seat on the Board—or if they typically want to be the lead investor or part of a syndicate. Another thing that is always good to know is how any investor can add value to your company if they invest in you; what experience, expertise or connections do they have in your field that can help you in the future?

Best of luck to you all at Digital RESI June. It is such an exciting opportunity for you to make meaningful connections that will drive your success.

Digital RESI June Welcomes BioHealth Capital Region as a Gold Sponsor

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By Bryanna Allison, Business Development Manager, LSN

The action item today is keeping up your business momentum in these challenging days. LSN has seen a distinct uptick in global regional-based tech hubs taking advantage of Digital RESI to expand into the new digital paradigm of global partnering conferences. The main strategy is to get the early stage companies back in the mix and secondly, to showcase the technology assets that are teeming in these dynamic regional hubs. The BioHealth Capital Region is a perfect example of deciding to take advantage of RESI and to expand their global reach.

The BioHealth Capital Region is uniquely positioned to help address Covid-19 with its biocluster serving as home to NIH and its 27 research institutes and 6,000 scientists, the FDA with its accelerated approval process, NIAID, BARDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci, all on the front line every day. In addition, many of the region’s industry leaders are developing innovative therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostic tools to fight the virus, including Emergent BioSolutions, Novavax, GSK, AstraZeneca, Qiagen and more than 30 more BioHealth companies of all sizes.

BioHealth Innovation, a Gold sponsor for this RESI Conference, has been busy assisting companies and entrepreneurs with their applications for the numerous Covid-19 grant opportunities, and working with international companies desiring to enter the U.S. market through the BioHealth Capital Region. We also are in the process of raising a $50 million BioHealth Capital Venture Fund to address the early stage funding gap in our ecosystem.

BioHealth Innovation, in cooperation with RESI, will be sponsoring 5 informative panels during Digital RESI June, with additional details will follow. We welcome all to join these sessions to hear from knowledgeable BioHealth experts, investors and entrepreneurs regarding best practices and information they can use to grow their businesses.