Our next conference, RESI NYC, is now less than 3 weeks away and it is a pleasure to announce the Health System Partners panel. This has become one of our more frequently featured – and certainly interesting – discussion topics, as an increasing amount of health systems and large hospital organizations are becoming actively involved in fostering innovation that can benefit the course of healthcare. One important consideration is that each firm has a unique approach in partnering with early-stage companies. From traditional VC-like firms to hands-on accelerator programs, there is something for everyone.
There is no doubt that these groups provide a tremendous value add, but how can entrepreneurs properly engage with them? What kind of expectations do they have when evaluating startup opportunities? To whom should entrepreneurs reach out, and what is the investment process like for each organization? These are the types of questions that will be addressed on the Health System Partners panel at RESI NYC, on Monday, November 5th, 2018.
Moderated by Brent Stackhouse, Vice President, Mount Sinai Ventures, Inc, our panelists for this session are:
A family office based in the USA invests in life science companies at the Seed or Series A stage. The firm will consider opportunities throughout the US and Canada but has a focus on the US East Coast and Midwest. The firm’s investment size ranges from $100,000-$250,000 for seed rounds up to as much as $5 million for Series A opportunities, and the firm may also participate in follow-on investments for their portfolio companies.
The firm is interested in medtech, diagnostics, digital health, biotech, and other applications in life sciences such as technologies that improve lab processes. The firm also has interest in therapeutic platform opportunities, but less in companies developing single drug assets. The firm is open to investing in early stage technologies, including devices that have yet to enter human clinical trials.
The firm will consider investing in companies that have obtained data from a prototype, pilot study, or early stage clinical trial. The firm will also consider investing in management teams that have a successful track record with similar types of technologies and targets.
If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.
An emerging company is focused on the development of the best-in-class immunotherapy technology for cancer cure. Teamed up with outstanding immunologists and molecular biologists, the firm has generated a strong pipeline of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) product candidates to treat a wide variety of liquid and solid tumors. Legend Biotech is a subsidiary company of a large Chinese CRO. The firm is actively seeking investment, partnering and licensing opportunities to expand the pipeline of therapeutics and offerings. Typical allocations are $1-10 M.
The firm’s sectors of focus are cell and gene therapies, cell engineering, processing and manufacturing technologies and tools.
The firm may seek a board seat depending upon size of investment. They are open to working with all stages of management teams. The firm can either lead or co-invest.
If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.
A pharma/biotech investment arm of a Middle East-based family office with a total AUM of $1B through its four investment arms is actively seeking investment opportunities. The firm is stage-agnostic, however the firm is fundamentally science-driven and considers mainly early pre-clinical and clinical-stage projects, preferably with POC validation. The firm’s investment size ranges widely from $0.5M – $20M and comes in the form of straight equity. The firm seeks board representation and is a very active investor, helping guide the company’s development and strategy. The firm invests globally and may lead investments, but typically co-invests in U.S.-based companies. The firm has no targeted number of investments per year.
The firm has also recently started an accelerator program with several globally established companies for pre-seed investments in early stage assets, including tech transfer from universities. This program provides $1-1.5M in funding for two years to help companies achieve POC and be ready to raise a Series A round. The program is open to technologies developed globally that are willing to be advanced in the country the investment firm is based in.
The firm is open to both pre-clinical and clinical stage companies and is agnostic to technology type and indication. The firm has a specific interest in immuno-oncology, gene therapy and orphan or unmet medical need. The firm is only interested in first-in-class, breakthrough assets and does not consider re-purposed assets or iterative technologies. The accelerator program is focused on therapeutics in oncology, immuno-oncology, immunology, fertility, endocrinology, gene therapy, synthetic biology and microbiome-related technologies.
The firm prefers to invest early and help take the company through a major inflection point. The firm has no specific management team requirements.
If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.
A healthcare-focused, evergreen incubator fund based in the USA is now focusing on orphan drugs and rare diseases via a holding company-fund business model pioneered by the firm in 2009 for common diseases. The firm collaborates with an affiliate on projects that are not in the orphan diseases space.
The firm has a high threshold for working with companies and makes most of its investments in companies with which there is some type of relationship, but it is open to new opportunities as well on a case-by-case basis. The firm is mainly focused on therapeutics and will consider platform technologies that are therapeutic focused e.g. digital therapeutics. The firm’s investment size varies widely depending on the needs of the company. The capital structure depends on the financing round, with convertible notes being preferred for seed rounds and equity for everything else (no debt financing) with the preferred entry point being seed or Series A.
The firm only co-invests, and does not lead rounds unless the key principals are part of founding entrepreneurs. The firm has some limitations on geographic exposure and will consider companies in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom.
The firm will invest in therapeutics (no specific indication) that treats orphan diseases with strong scientific rationale. For the firm, not all orphan indications are rare or ultra-rare since the future is fragmentation of common indications characterized through genomics or proteomics profile. The firm is interested in clinical stage assets starting from Phase IIa but on a case by case basis earlier stage assets that are validated in pre-clinical models.
In the past, the firm has invested in therapeutics (a single asset or a company with multiple products), which treat unmet needs in glaucoma, thrombosis (in particular patients with prosthetic heart valves and renal dysfunction), atrial fibrillation, inflammatory disorders (such as ulcerative colitis), gastrointestinal disorders (such as constipation, reflux disease) as well as a small molecule to treat neurovascular disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, wet-age related macular degeneration.
The firm will consider clinical-stage therapeutics (or with those with other therapeutic modalities) to treat orphan disease including small molecules, and novel biologics (including “biobetters”) that are likely to obtain or already have issued composition of matter patents (and/or method of use patents) and platform technologies (that could generate novel drug candidates for orphan diseases), repurposed drugs with issued IP, biosimilars and digital therapeutics. The firm has interest in diagnostics, medical devices (for drug-device combination only) or digital health (data analytics for diagnosing diseases) as long as the focus is on orphan diseases. Any areas outside these, the firm collaborates with an affiliate to enable set-up and/or growth.
The firm does not have any specific management team requirements, and will work with all entrepreneurs. A board seat is not always required, but is not uncommon.
If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.
RESI Partnering launched on Monday, and many startups have already booked a face to face meeting with an investor via the online partnering system. We’d like to provide a few tips for getting the most out of RESI Partnering.
Write a concise request that explains why you want to meet
Invstors get many meeting requests at RESI and it’s therefore important to make yours stand out as compelling and relevant. Try to keep your message to 2-3 short paragraphs if possible. It’s helpful to say why you want to meet; perhaps the investor’s profile indicates that they are interested in early stage assets in your technology area, or maybe their prior experience indicates expertise in your indication area.
Don’t leave it until the last minute
We have found that investors come in two types; some check meeting requests as they come in and decide immediately whether to request or decline them, and others wait until close to the event then peruse all their requests at once. The former often get their schedules fully booked well in advance of the event, so if you don’t start sending requests out soon you could miss them.
Check for new investors often
By default, RESI Partnering lists investors alphabetically: however, you can use the filter at the top of the Search tab to change the order from ‘Alphabetical’ to ‘Date approved’. You can use this function regularly to check for new investors that match your search. New investors are added every day, so if you log in regularly you will see new firms that match your search criteria.
Find other ways to reach investors
Attendees who use RESI Premier Partnering are provided with direct contact info that can be used to reach investors. Among so many partnering requests, it can be helpful to email your deck or make a quick call to give your investor more impetus to consider you for a meeting. If you aren’t using RESI Premier Partnering, you may be able to find the investor’s contact information on their website, or reach them via LinkedIn.
An interview with Dr. Jean Yao, Managing Partner, Med Qiao Group
– By Jessica Yang, Investor Research Analyst, LSN
Jessica Yang
An increasing number of Chinese investors are looking for companies around the globe with a China angle and changing the dynamics of life science innovations. Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jean Yao, Managing Partner at Med Qiao Group, about her experience sourcing investment opportunities through RESI in the past two years. Jean has attended nearly every RESI event since 2016.
Jessica: To begin with, please tell us a little bit about your background?
Jean: I am the founder of Med Qiao Group, and I have been active within the Medtech/Diagnostics/Digital Health technology community for over twenty years as a venture capitalist, consultant, and technologist. I’ve also been working with startups, institutional and strategic VCs to help them expand the market in China.
Jessica: You’ve been to almost every RESI since you first attended in January 2016. In your opinion, what are the greatest strengths of RESI?
Jean: RESI organizes five different conferences every year in various cities such as San Francisco, Boston, and New York. As an investor open to technology with broad interests of life sciences and healthcare, RESI plays a critical role that enables investors to source more deals. Also, one thing I enjoy in RESI is that you can discover different kinds of biotech/medtech ecosystems in different cities, and in RESI you’ll find new companies every time with high quality.
Jessica: What successes have you experienced through RESI?
Jean: I have invested in a cancer diagnostics company that I met in RESI. Overall, I can see that there are more and more investors and companies who are developing innovative technologies coming to RESI, which makes RESI a valuable partnering conference since RESI helps to connect the dots in the life science space. Also, I always recommended my portfolio companies to attend RESI to gain more exposure to other investors and potential strategic partners.
Jessica: How do you see the value that RESI provides to cross-border investors like you?
Jean: The investment market is tremendous in China since Asia and the US are currently the biggest healthcare markets in the world. RESI helps cross-border investors have a chance to source more US deals, and also the one-on-one partnering meeting system makes it more efficient for investors to filter the companies before the conference, and people can find the mutual fits through browsing the online partnering platform.
About Med Qiao: Med Qiao Group is a healthcare market investor as well as a unique medical-business strategic consulting firm dedicated to bridging between East and West healthcare worlds. Med Qiao has offices based in Minneapolis and Shanghai, China. Alongside investments, the firm advises life science companies on strategic partnerships (manufacturers, distributors) in the Asian market by providing resources in the network.
