By Lucy Parkinson, VP of Investor Research, LSN

With just days to go until RESI Partnering opens, investors have been flocking to RESI Europe from around the world. You can see below for who’s going to be there – from major pharma firms to family offices to regional and global VCs, there’s an abundance of capital on the table. If you’d like to be in the RESI Partnering action when we launch on Monday, you can register now.

Confirmed RESI Vienna Investors

As of Feb. 20th

 

An interview with Chuck Stetson, CEO, Stetson Family Office – By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation; Creator of RESI Conference Series

The Stetson Family Office has been active in driving global initiatives between two key investor groups: family offices that have desire and dollars to impact global health, and regional angel groups who have the ability to vet and recommend compelling early stage life science technologies. These alliances have the power to accelerate early stage investment across the silos of drugs, devices, diagnostics and digital health. There is a multitude of global early stage life science startups that are in need of early stage funding partners who can provide the capital to develop the next generation healthcare products. These next generation products will have a great impact on virtually everybody on the planet.

Recently Dennis Ford, CEO of Life Science Nation and the creator of the Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference Series (RESI) sat down with Chuck Stetson, the CEO of the Stetson Family Office and founder of the Global Family Office BioForum, to get an update on Chuck’s global initiatives.

Dennis: Chuck, what exactly is the Global Family Office BioForum (GFOB)? How many Family Offices participate and how many cities throughout the world?

Chuck: I created and launched the entity Global BioForum because like my own family office, I discovered there were other family offices that are genuinely interested in philanthropy and social impact investing in healthcare, but finding and vetting the technology assets proved to be a challenge for them because of limited staff. To meet the challenge I created a strategy to match up regional angel networks with up to 40 members vetting each deal with regional family offices within the early stage life science arena. I did this by creating a strategic relationship with Life Science Nation and bringing my family office groups to the RESI conference events where they are able to connect with angels and also find technology that they may want to invest in. Over the last year I have hosted 4 very successful family office luncheons at the RESI events and will be bringing some of my family office network to the RESI Vienna Conference on March 25.

Currently we have an affiliated group of 260 active family offices meeting quarterly in 19 cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, with a stated goal to help to strengthen the life science early stage ecosystem. On April 23-24th, 2019, there will be a Global BioForum gathering in Chicago and will be held in cooperation with the Angel Capital Association (ACA). Founded in 2004, ACA is the official industry alliance of 13,000 angel investors working in 260 organizations. My relationships with LSN and ACA have helped connect the capital with the early stage life science products and we are already seeing great results.

Dennis: What are the direct goals that you have set with the Stetson Family Office and the Life Science Nation alliance?

Chuck: Early stage product development is all about securing funding to get the products developed faster. It is my personal goal to create programs that will aid international life science startups in raising seed capital, Series A and B funding rounds, and also launch a Boston-based immersion fundraising and partnering program run by LSN and integrated into the RESI conferences to prepare and educate fundraising CEOs on how to go from canvassing regionally to canvassing globally for potential investors. This would essentially prepare and integrate these startups into LSN’s global partnering ecosystem, including the Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Conference Series in Boston, San Francisco, Europe and Asia and access to LSN’s partner network.

Dennis: Would you like to add some more commentary on your efforts?

Chuck: In summary, I want to use the Global BioForum to help provide the seed rounds to move compelling technology out of the labs and onto the commercial development path. It will focus specifically on years 0 to 3, commonly referred to as “The Valley of Death”. Another goal is to advance women as investors and as entrepreneurs in the life sciences. Last but not least, is direct preliminary interest in products that impact healthy brain, diabetes, obesity and heart disease, although all products are welcome.

Chuck Stetson, CEO, Stetson Family Office

Eugene W. Stetson started the Stetson Family Office shortly after he personally led the buyout of The Coca-Cola Company through a public offering in August 1919 by the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, where he subsequently served as Chairman and just before he died and organized, he organize with the much smaller J.P. Morgan. At his death, Eugene was Coca-Cola’s longest serving member of the Board and of the Executive Committee. Chuck Stetson, the third generation running the family office, is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. The Stetson Family Office started Healthcare Impact Foundation, a 501-c-3 organization, in 2017 to bring capital and management expertise to local life science companies and to build and maintain an efficient life science eco-system composed of R&D facilities, incubation facilities, venture capital investors, angel investors, family office investors, and networks of experts in science, management, industry, reimbursement and public policy. Stetson Family Office has set up a unique Global Family Office BioForum with family offices around the globe working closely with their local healthcare innovation. Family Offices are responding with excitement.

By Claire Jeong, Director of Research, Asia BD, LSN

Life Science Nation is busily preparing for our inaugural RESI Europe event at Vienna, Austria on Monday, March 25^th, we are excited to announce our Big Pharma panel! There is no doubt that major pharmaceuticals are continuing to explore creative approaches in partnering with early-stage companies, extending beyond the scope of traditional therapeutics. Companies fully understand the value of developing strategic partnerships with big pharma, but it can be a challenge to get in front of the right team.

As companies want to better understand the implications of partnering with big pharma, this panel has been one of our most popular topics since the inception of RESI – here is our lineup of panelists:

Florence Dal Degan, R&D Innovation Sourcing Director at Novo Nordisk

Florence Dal Degan joined Novo Nordisk A/S in May 2016 as R&D Innovation Sourcing Director. The R&D Innovation Sourcing team of Novo Nordisk is global, with a presence at the Danish Headquarters, as well as a regional presence in Shanghai, Boston, New-York and Paris. Florence is based in Paris and is responsible for search and evaluation of new opportunities within Europe and Middle-East across the therapeutic areas that Novo Nordisk is dedicated to, such as diabetes, obesity, NASH, chronic cardiovascular diseases, nephropathy and haemophilia. Florence has a PhD in biochemistry from The National Institute of Agronomy (Agro-Paris Tech, France). She has over 20 years of experience in Research and Development in academic, biotech and pharma environments. Since 2000, Florence has worked with drug discovery and early development and has held several positions as group leader within R&D. She has been working with external innovation since 2012.

Olaf Koenig, Director, International Business Development at Amgen

Olaf Koenig joined Amgen’s Global Business Development team in May 2017. He is Director, International Business Development and responsible for ex-US business development transactions. He is based in Amgen’s European Headquarter in Rotkreuz, Switzerland. He has over 20 years of international experience in a variety of business development and commercial roles, and a track record of leading and closing of several in-licensing, out-licensing and M&A transactions. Prior to joining Amgen, Olaf was Vice President, Business Development & New Product Planning Europe at Daiichi Sankyo. Before joining Daiichi Sankyo, he served as Director Business Development at Merck KGaA. Olaf began his career as Product Manager at Molecular Simulations in Cambridge, UK. Olaf holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Berne, Switzerland.

Natalia Novac, Director, Emerging Technology & Innovation, Corporate Business Development at Eli Lilly & Co

Natalia Novac is a part of the Emerging Technology and Innovation Group and is responsible for search and evaluation of novel healthcare technologies across all Eli Lilly indications in Europe.  Natalia is involved in the scientific evaluation of novel life science assets coming from multiple venture funds where Eli Lilly participates as a limited partner. Natalia is an experienced pharmaceutical industry professional with solid background in oncology, endocrinology, immunology and multiple sclerosis. Natalia has a PhD in molecular biology and MSc in Microbiology. Natalia’s LinkedIn

Chris Church, Manager, Partnering and Strategy at AstraZeneca

Chris joined AstraZeneca in November 2014 as a scientist, team and project leader for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic disease (CVRM) with a focus on obesity and type 2 diabetes. Chris transitioned to the AstraZeneca partnering and strategy team helping to coordinate in and out-licensing opportunities for CVRM together with supporting the local and international biopharma ecosystem.

Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Chris obtained a First Class degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Bath, UK and completed a PhD at the University of Oxford and MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, Harwell, UK. This was followed by a postdoctoral position at Yale University, USA and MBA with the Open University.

In case you are curious about what the panel discussion will look like, here is a recap of the Big Pharma panel during RESI SF 2018 (although many different topics will be addressed in the upcoming panel).

If you are not signed up for RESI Europe yet, we hope you can join us and meet companies/investors that fit your partnering objectives and strategies!