By Michael Quigley, Director of Research, LSN

In honor of the 100th edition of the Next Phase newsletter, LSN would like to share five of the most popular articles to date. These articles provide a great snapshot of what this newsletter is all about: educating entrepreneurs and investors on the early stage life-science-investment landscape and providing tactical advice to entrepreneurs on how best to present their opportunity to the life science investment community. These articles all stem from our daily dialogues with both investors and entrepreneurs from around the world; this experience allows us to act as an information portal between these two groups.

Without further ado, here are the top five articles.

1. 11 Tips for Creating a Successful Pitch Deck

By Shaoyu Chang, Senior Research Analyst

“Coming from a scientific background, I thought I knew well enough about using slides and making presentations, whether in laboratory journal clubs or at hundred-attendee conferences. However, as I start to help fellow scientists on their fundraising campaigns, it has become apparent to me that academia and business speak very different languages.”

2. LSN Published in Nature Bioentrepreneur: “Beyond Venture Capital”

By Dennis Ford, CEO, LSN, and Barbara Nelsen, Founder, Nelsen Biomedical

“LSN is officially announcing the release of  ‘Beyond Venture Capital’ in the January 8, 2014, edition of Nature Bioentrepreneur! This piece, appearing in the current issue of Nature, is an in-depth analysis of the new life sciences fundraising environment, detailing what caused the paradigm shift in the investor landscape, who is active, and how fundraising executives should adapt. This is a must-read piece for anyone involved in the early stage life sciences arena, and an excellent primer for newcomers to the Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference.”

3. Formulating the Introductory Email to Potential Investors

By Michael Quigley, Director of Research

“Having personally scheduled and held several hundred interviews with life science investors over the past year, I have developed and refined a formula for getting ‘in the door’ with an introductory email. As anyone who has embarked on a fundraising campaign knows, initiating the dialogue is often the hardest part of the process. Few introductory emails ever get opened, and even fewer earn a reply at all. However, there are a few concepts and tactics that can increase your efficacy substantially when it comes to initiating a dialogue and locking in that first meeting. This article will share some insights from my personal experience that may be helpful in your email outreach.”

4. Pharma-Licensing Deal Trends in 2014

By Lucy Parkinson, Senior Research Manager

“LSN gathers data on early stage life science companies and investors worldwide, but we also track global licensing activity and trends through the LSN Deal Platform. We analyzed 20 pharma deals that were publicly announced from January through April and spotted three trends that offer a glimpse of what the industry may expect from pharma-licensing activity in 2014.”

5. 10 Steps to a Life Science Fundraising Campaign

By Dennis Ford, CEO

“Executing a successful fundraising campaign in the life sciences space requires organization, professionalism, determination, a great technology, and an outstanding team. LSN has worked with hundreds of companies in this capacity—companies that are at all stages of development, in regions around the world, and pursuing various types of technology. We’ve been watching as the latest process for fundraising has surfaced, and I wanted to share what we see as the ten steps.”

We hope you have enjoyed Next Phase so far and found useful information in this newsletter. We look forward to continuing to provide you with tactical advice and forward-looking information on the early stage life-science-investment landscape in the months to come.

By Lucy Parkinson, Senior Research Manager, LSN

LSN will be heading to Houston in June for our next RESI event, so we decided to take a closer look at a sample of life science companies based in seven Southwest states—the types of innovation taking place in these companies and the number of products emerging from the biotech pipelines.

We looked at companies based in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The sample was drawn from the LSN Company Platform, which partners with bioclusters around the world to gather information on early-stage life science companies.

Our sample consists of biotech companies with assets that are at least in the preclinical stage and not beyond Phase III, and medtech companies with products currently in development; neither life science service providers nor biotech companies at the discovery or lead-optimization stages were included. While most of these companies were located in Texas, the sample included companies from every one of the seven aforementioned states.

The collective pipeline of the biotech companies consists of 323 products, and we were able to track 301 by key indication area. (See Figure 1.) Cancer is by far the most common, accounting for more than one-third of the assets. Other leading areas of innovation include infectious diseases and neurology.

The medtech companies have 59 products that span a wide variety of fields. (See Figure 2.)

The LSN Company Platform also tracks the progress of the biotech products through the pipeline. (See Figure 3.)

As one would expect, the number of assets falls sharply following the preclinical stage, as both companies and their investors look for “go/no-go” signs in their animal data; a second steep drop happens following Phase II efficacy studies. What’s unusual about life science innovation in these states is the steepness of that second drop, as we can see by comparing these results to an analysis of companies across the U.S. (See Figure 4.)

The skew toward early stage assets is greater in these seven states than it is for the nation. There are 7 preclinical assets for every 1 asset that reaches Phase III, whereas for the U.S. as a whole, there are 3.3 preclinical assets for every 1 asset that reaches Phase III. The skew could be because strong companies leave for the East Coast or the West Coast or are acquired by entities based in other regions before the lead asset reaches Phase III. It could also be due to a more restricted funding environment, which may make companies more likely to close their doors after mixed results in Phase II.

In addition to biotech and medtech companies, these states are also home to a number of early stage life science investors who are open to investing in precommercial life science products. (See Figure 5.)

While examining investor exposure in these states, we found that a substantial number of investors are interested in opportunities not only in their own backyard but also globally. A core pillar of the RESI conference is providing entrepreneurs with a broad audience of investors—local, regional, national, and international—and we look forward to providing an opportunity for this audience to meet with life science entrepreneurs in these states and beyond.

By Nono Hu, Senior Manager, Branding & Messaging, LSN

This week, LSN would like to share the RESI 4 Diagnostic Investor Panel recap video with you. The panel features five investors from a highly diverse group of both for-profit and nonprofit investment organizations in the diagnostics field.