By Michael Quigley, Director of Research, LSN

Over the past few months, we have examined the innovation landscape of early stage life science companies and investors across the Northeast, Southwest, and West Coast regions of the United States. This week we aim to shed light on life science investment and innovation in the European Therapeutic sector.

Using both the LSN Investor and Company Platforms, we have been able to identify over 350 investors and nearly 5000 therapeutic assets—from over 1000 companies—that have yet to reach commercialization. Figures 1 and 2 below show the number of European therapeutic assets LSN tracks by country of origin as well as the location of those European investors to whom LSN’s research team has spoken.

The United Kingdom is a clear leader in both the number of unique assets and investors who call the island home. This might be attributed to a combination of the significant large pharma presence in the country and the growing number of government initiatives and regional funding groups that operate there. Germany comes in as a close second for therapeutic assets, again fueled by a significant presence of large pharma. However, despite being number two on the list for investors based there as well, Germany along with the rest of the European countries fall significantly lower in terms of the number of investors based there than in the UK. While this may be partially due to the language barrier between the research team at LSN and non-English speaking countries, the difference appears too significant to be attributed to that alone.

Figures 3 and 4 respectively show the current phases of development of the European therapeutic assets, and the overall level of interest investors in this region have in each stage of the pipeline.

It is in the preclinical phase of development that most European therapeutic assets currently fall, however, much to the bane of fundraising entrepreneurs, it is the second least popular stage for investors. Fundraising at this point in the development cycle can be an uphill battle, though once a company begins to generate in-human data in phase I, supply and demand appears to tip more in favor of the entrepreneurs.

As the life science fundraising arena is a highly competitive space, particularly for early stage companies, it is vital that an entrepreneur identifies and then contacts all the different types of investors and capital providers that are a fit for the company’s investment profile. In Europe, just as in the U.S., there is a growing diversity of life science investors, and to focus your efforts on only one or a few of them does a great disservice to your campaign. Figure 5 below shows the diversity of European investors by class that LSN’s research team has uncovered and spoken with.

 

While venture capital and private equity lead the charge when it comes to investor types, the other categories also represent a significant percentage of total investors in the region and a very significant amount of capital. Since fundraising is a numbers game and the odds are often stacked again the entrepreneur, it is crucial to be able to identify and attract as many firms as possible that could be value-adding investors in your opportunity. Join us again next week for a comparative dive into the European medical device innovation and investment landscape.

By Michael Quigley, Director of Research, LSN

Back in January, at our RESI Conference, I gave a presentation describing the tools and methods used by LSN’s Research team to identify, profile, and initiate dialogue with investors in the life science space. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with attendees praising the tactical nature of the information, and Medmarc requested I host the presentation as a webinar for their monthly series. The entire webinar can be downloaded here, however with this article I wish to elucidate one simple tool that can be used immediately and will drastically improve your effectiveness when researching investors.

While Google remains the most common search engine in the world, many people underutilize it. The following two images feature a few Boolean operators that can be used in the Google Search bar as well as a screen shot of a sample search using them that shows how effective they can be.

 

Thanks to the use of Boolean operators, the search above yields only web pages that have “life science” in the title, include both “invest” and “early stage” somewhere in the text, and do not include the word “public.” As shown, this one simple search yields a number of early stage life science investors on just the first page of results. When using these operators for your own fundraising campaign, you should tailor the search to include keywords that describe the profile of your opportunity. These include your stage of development, indication, technology type, and any other information that can be associated with your company or product. You can also narrow your search based on the type of investor you are interested identifying. Whether you are seeking Family Offices, Corporate Venture Capital, Venture Philanthropy, Venture Capitalists (VC), or any other class of investor, you can focus on them by including the investor class in quotations in your search.

Experiment through multiple searches; you can go from very narrow to broad by varying the number of keywords and operators you use. Consider who might be interested in your opportunity from a number of angles, including geographic regions with government initiatives, people affected by the condition, potential strategic benefactors of your technology, as well as financially motivated investors looking strictly for a strong ROI. By doing this, you can build a strong target list of people to contact who may want to work with you directly or can refer you to someone else in their network who does.

For over two years, LSN has been using these methods to identify and profile capital providers in the life science space with outstanding results, both in finding new investors and successfully matching companies with investors. The webinar offers more information for those entering the capital fundraising landscape, including details on the different categories of investors that can be found, how to determine whether an investor is a good fit, and how to structure the initial outreach to increase the odds of a meaning dialogue. I hope you can use this information to better identify investor leads and I wish you all the best in your campaigns!

By Lucy Parkinson, Senior Research Manager, LSN

We’ve previously taken a dive into the LSN Company Platform and the LSN Investor Platform to assess the life science landscape in America’s Northeast and Southwest regions. This week, we will examine current product development and investor activity on the West Coast.

Using the LSN Company Platform, we took a sample of biotech and medtech assets being developed in West Coast states. While the bulk of these assets are in California, the state of Washington also makes a significant contribution to the data, and the LSN Company Platform also tracks several companies based in Oregon and Hawaii. In total, the sample drew from the pipelines of 493 companies, which collectively are developing 187 medtech products and 1529 biotech products. In the case of the biotech assets, we track the specific target indication in 1399 cases, as is shown in Figure 1:

While many of the assets under development on the West Coast are in the cancer sector, we also see significant numbers of pipeline assets in other fields. In addition, although the clinical areas with the most assets—oncology, diseases of the nervous system, and endocrine and metabolic diseases—also have solid pipelines nationwide, the numbers in other indication areas illuminate distinct regional differences. Compared to the Northeast, we see more innovation in blood and immune disorders, but less in the musculoskeletal field.

Beyond this top-level data, we can also look more specifically at the breadth of the assets in each indication area. If we look deeper into the field of oncology, we find that these West Coast-based companies are developing cures for a wide variety of cancers. Figure 2 shows the top 20 subtypes of cancer in terms of the number of assets in development. Several cancers that currently have very high mortality rates, such as pancreatic, lung, and ovarian cancers, are represented in this group. In these areas, scientists are advancing new products that could have a significant impact on patient outcomes in the future.

The West Coast is also a hotbed for life science investors. The LSN Investor Platform tracks investors throughout the region, and Figure 3 provides a breakdown of those that we have discovered have an interest in development stage life science companies:

In addition to the many life science venture capitalists based on the West Coast, LSN Research has found that there is a significant number of West Coast angel groups that are interested in life science companies. Corporate venture capital is also a major force in the region, with many VC arms of major West Coast tech companies looking for strategic opportunities in the healthcare field.

LSN’S RESI Conference series now includes regular annual stops in three regions of the U.S.: the Northeast, Southwest, and West Coast. All possess significant life science innovation ecosystems and a host of local investors interested in opportunities both locally and globally. As RESI tours these three corners of the U.S. life science universe, we welcome you to join us and connect face-to-face with like-minded individuals who are a match for your product, or for your investment criteria. Meet like-minded individuals who can work alongside you in bringing new cures to market.