Tag Archives: entrepreneurship

Hot Investor Mandate: Multi-Family Office Firm Invests in Companies and Aligned Funds in Biotech, Precision Medicine, and Medtech  

5 May

The firm is a multi-family office investment and wealth management platform that combines traditional advisory services with direct investment and co-investment opportunities. The firm allocates capital across both direct company investments and third-party funds, providing exposure to high-growth sectors. The firm operates across Europe and the United States and maintains a flexible investment approach spanning multiple asset classes and stages.  

The firm has an active focus on health technology and life sciences, including precision medicine, biotechnology, and select medical technology opportunities. The firm evaluates both companies and funds across early-stage and growth-stage investments, with an emphasis on scientific and clinical innovation that can drive meaningful long-term impact. Areas of interest include personalized healthcare, advanced therapeutic modalities, and technologies that improve diagnosis, treatment, and patient outcomes.  

From a company and management team perspective, the firm partners with teams demonstrating strong domain expertise, execution capability, and strategic clarity. The firm prioritizes opportunities with robust scientific or technical foundations and credible pathways through development, regulatory processes, and commercialization. The firm invests as a collaborative partner, offering capital alongside strategic insight, co-investment flexibility, and access to a broader network of investors and industry relationships.

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

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Hot Investor Mandate: Asia-Based Healthcare-Focused VC Invests Broadly in All Life Science Sectors, Actively Making Cross-Border Investments 

5 May

A healthcare-focused venture capital firm with a team grounded in biomedical training and industry experience manages both local currency and USD-denominated funds and invests across early and growth stages. The firm has an established track record of investing in companies across multiple financing rounds and geographies, including Asia, North America, and Europe. The firm maintains a strong conviction in long-term growth opportunities within the global healthcare sector, particularly in cross-border innovation.  

The firm invests broadly across therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare IT, and medical services. Within therapeutics, the firm has invested across a range of indications such as oncology, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders, covering multiple modalities including small molecules, biologics, and gene-based therapies. The firm also evaluates device and imaging technologies, as well as opportunities in bioinformatics, research tools, and adjacent areas such as animal health. Therapeutic investments typically begin at preclinical stages, while device investments are often made prior to commercialization.  

From a company and management team perspective, the firm does not impose strict requirements and remains open to partnering with a wide range of teams and opportunities. 

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

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Hot Investor Mandate: Global Multi-Stage Life Sciences Investor Seeks Therapies Addressing High Unmet Medical Need in North America and Asia

5 May

The firm is a life sciences-focused venture capital firm with a global presence and a track record of investing across private and public markets. The firm manages multiple funds backed by institutional and strategic investors and has built a diversified portfolio of companies, including a meaningful number of seed and incubated ventures. The investment team brings extensive experience across venture investing, biopharmaceutical development, academia, and regulatory environments. The firm operates globally with team members based across key innovation hubs in North America and Asia.  

The firm invests across the life sciences sector, targeting areas of high unmet medical need. The firm is flexible across geographies and development stages, leveraging a cross-functional platform to support value creation from early company formation through later-stage and public market investing.  

From a company and management team perspective, the firm prefers to lead investments and typically takes board representation. The firm plays an active role in supporting portfolio companies through strategic guidance across capital markets, business development, clinical strategy, regulatory planning, and commercialization. The firm seeks to partner with management teams that demonstrate strong capability, commitment, and the ability to advance innovative technologies. 

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

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Oncovita: A Novel Measles-Based Approach to Unlock Immunotherapy in Solid Tumors 

5 May

By Rahul Shetty, Project Management & BD Associate, LSN

Max-Braht-HeadshotIn oncology, one of the most persistent challenges is not a lack of therapeutic innovation, but a fundamental biological limitation: many tumors remain invisible to the immune system. While immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors have transformed treatment paradigms, a significant proportion of cancers, often referred to as “cold” tumors, fail to respond because they simply are not recognized as threats.

Oncovita, a France-based biotechnology company, is addressing this challenge with a novel approach rooted in engineered measles virotherapy. By leveraging the natural biology of the measles vaccine virus, the company aims to expose tumors to immune attack, effectively converting immunologically silent cancers into targets the body can detect and destroy.

This approach is particularly relevant in pleural mesothelioma, one of the deadliest solid tumors, where survival is often measured in months and treatment options remain extremely limited. Its immunologically silent nature makes it largely invisible to immune surveillance and resistant to existing immunotherapies, leaving patients with few effective options.

At the core of Oncovita’s platform is MVdeltaC, an engineered measles vaccine virus designed for intratumoral administration. Many tumors, including mesothelioma, overexpress CD46 – the receptor used by the measles virus to enter cells, providing a natural mechanism for selective targeting. Once inside the tumor, MVdeltaC triggers immunogenic tumor cell death and immune activation by releasing danger signals and tumor antigens, ultimately priming T cells to recognize and attack cancer. In doing so, it converts “cold” tumors into “hot” ones, enabling both local and systemic immune responses.

The use of measles vaccine as a therapeutic backbone offers several advantages. The live attenuated vaccine has been administered to more than four billion people worldwide, establishing a strong safety profile. It replicates in the cytoplasm without integrating into host DNA and is known to stimulate both innate and adaptive immunity, making it well suited for cancer immunotherapy.

Evidence supporting this approach includes a documented remission in a patient with triple-negative breast cancer treated with a measles-based therapy, along with preclinical data showing complete tumor regressions, long-term survival, and systemic immune activation across multiple aggressive tumor models. MVdeltaC has also demonstrated strong potential in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, further expanding its therapeutic relevance.

Oncovita is advancing MVdeltaC with an initial focus on pleural mesothelioma, supported by FDA & EMA Orphan Drug Designation and a clear regulatory pathway. From there, the company plans to expand into triple-negative breast cancer and additional solid tumors, using a stepwise strategy that builds early clinical validation before scaling into larger markets. This stepwise approach allows the company to generate early clinical proof-of-concept in a high-need population before expanding into broader oncology indications. With approximately 9,000 eligible patients annually across the U.S., Europe, and Japan in its initial indications and a significantly larger addressable market across solid tumors, the long-term opportunity is substantial.

Oncovita’s progress is supported by a multidisciplinary team with expertise spanning virology, immunotherapy, and clinical oncology. The company collaborates with leading institutions and key opinion leaders, including experts from Institut Gustave Roussy and MD Anderson Cancer Center, reinforcing the scientific and clinical foundation of its program.

As immunotherapy continues to evolve, enabling the immune system to recognize cancer may be just as important as enhancing its response. Oncovita’s measles-based virotherapy represents a compelling approach to solving this challenge, offering the potential to expand immunotherapy to patients who currently have limited treatment options.

Learn More & Connect

To learn more about Oncovita, visit: https://www.oncovita.fr/

To connect directly with CEO Stephane Altaba, reach out here: stephane.altaba@oncovita.fr

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Convention Week: How to Get the Most Investor/Inlicensor Meetings & Exposure 

5 May

By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

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Prep for the June mega-events in San Diego, BIO Convention and the neighboring RESI, starts now. We’re 7 weeks out and it’s getting warm. In another week, the Heat is On by Glen Frey. Three weeks or so after that, scheduling starts and it’s Hot Hot Hot by Buster Poindexter. Finally, when partnering starts on June 22, it’s the Heat of the Moment by Asia. 80s music references aside, here are the top things you need to do NOW to ensure your company succeeds:

  1. Register. Want to meet investors funding seed through series B and pharma external innovation? There will be over 300 at RESI. Click here to take advantage of RESI early bird rates.
  2. Consider registering to pitch, with many opportunities throughout Convention week. Pitching at RESI puts you in front of a panel of well-aligned investors who are obligated to be interactive and give you feedback.
  3. Log into the partnering system and find your ideal partners. Repeat this every week to account for new registrants. At RESI this is straightforward as the LSN staff populates investors profiles very granularly based on the LSN Investor Database. Investors are carefully vetted. Searching for investors interested in a given modality, disease, geography, stage, etc. is fast. Searching for well-aligned partners in the larger Convention ecosystem can require more oversight (e.g. is an in-licensor looking for early stage, late stage or on-market assets?) Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
  4. Open as much availability on your calendar/agenda as possible. Convention week is NOT the time to block the early morning time slots because you want to sleep in 😉
  5. Send customized meeting requests. Meetings are more likely to be accepted if you spend some effort customizing each meeting request to the interests of the receiving company. Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
  6. Minimize the number of people from your company who are required to attend the meeting. The fewer people in the meeting the more likely it is to get scheduled (if it’s accepted).
  7. Follow-up on unanswered meeting requests. As someone who’s been behind the scenes running partnering at dozens of partnering events, I can tell you there is a complex series of variables that determines if your meeting request gets accepted. Sometimes it’s as simple as the person who would accept your meeting request did not register until later, even though his/her colleagues registered earlier. That’s why it’s important not let unanswered meeting requests languish indefinitely. Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
  8. Cancel ‘dead’ unanswered meeting requests. When you determine you won’t get a response for a given meeting request, cancel it to increase your meeting request allotment. Join my webinar to learn the best way to do this!
  9. When scheduling starts, immediately reach out to the other party for meetings that cannot be scheduled due to lack of mutual availability. You can also try reaching out to the partnering system administrators to see if they can help.
  10. Practice your meeting presentation to ensure everything gets finished in the allotted time. For Convention, 25 minutes is a good guide, as meetings can be far apart from each other. For RESI, 30 minutes as meetings are physically close together. To get between RESI and Convention, plan at least 20 minutes.
  11. Take advantage of virtual partnering. RESI provides virtual partnering during Convention week and the following week. Extend your ROI by continuing the momentum of Convention week into the next week.
  12. Be prompt about your follow-up the week after Convention.

Whew! I’m So Tired (by the Beatles) just writing this, I can’t imagine how I feel after I go through the Convention Week + RESI gauntlet! For more details on how to succeed at Convention & RESI, join my webinar on May 20 for all the best tips and tricks!

Sign Up the Webinar

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From Viability to Capital: Financing Risk 

5 May

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation (LSN)

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As part of Life Science Nation’s series on converting scientific innovation into investable signal, the focus now shifts to financing risk. After establishing market need, technical proof, regulatory clarity, execution capability, and economic viability, the next question becomes whether the company can actually secure the capital required to move forward.

Financing risk is where opportunity must become an investable campaign. It is not about whether capital exists, but whether a company can access it in a structured, disciplined way that aligns with how risk is being reduced, and whether the capital required to reach market is a financially viable prospect.

This article examines how companies define capital requirements, link funding to milestone-driven progress, align with the right investors, and build a credible fundraising strategy.

From syndicate formation to campaign execution and timing, this layer of the De-Risk Stack determines whether capital follows signal—or stalls in uncertainty.

Financing Risk

From Opportunity to Investable Campaign

Once a clear plan exists and economic logic is credible, the question becomes whether capital can be raised to support execution at each stage.

Financing risk is not about whether capital exists. There is significant capital available globally for life science. The real question is whether your company can access it in a disciplined and repeatable way that matches how risk is being reduced.

This starts with capital requirement clarity. You need to know how much capital is required to reach the next set of milestones, based on your actual operating plan, not a generic estimate. If milestones are unclear, capital requirements will be too.

Next is the linkage between capital and milestones. Every dollar raised should be tied to the removal of specific risks and the creation of specific signals. Investors are not funding time; they are funding progress.

Stage alignment and investor fit determine which capital you should pursue. Different investors specialize in different stages, risk profiles, and modalities. Misalignment here leads to wasted time and damaged narratives.

Most meaningful rounds require syndicate formation. That means identifying a plausible lead and realistic co-investors, and understanding their incentives and constraints.

Fundraising itself must be approached as a structured campaign, not a series of disconnected meetings. That includes building a sufficiently large and relevant investor universe, sequencing outreach, managing follow-up, and maintaining momentum over time.

Timing closes the loop. Capital must be raised when sufficient progress has been made to justify the next step, but before the company is under acute pressure. Raising too early or too late increases risk and narrows options. Additionally, accepting a bad deal can have a negative impact on future rounds, with potential investors backing out due to unfavorable terms.

Financing risk is resolved when capital follows the systematic reduction of risk—when each round is underpinned by new signal rather than hope.

Core Elements of Financing Risk

  • Capital requirement clarity
  • Linkage between capital and milestones
  • Stage alignment
  • Investor fit
  • Syndicate formation
  • Fundraising strategy
  • Campaign execution
  • Timing

Next in the series: Exit Risk — Defining the Path to Liquidity

Previous Articles：

  1. Technical Risk – From Belief to Evidence
  2. The Problem Is Not the Science: A Seven-Part Series on De-Risking, Signal, and Investability
  3. From Proof to Approval: Regulatory Risk
  4. From Plan to Progress: Execution Risk
  5. From Progress to Viability: Economic Risk

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Hot Investor Mandate: US-Based Early-Stage Investor Funds and Creates Companies Around Techbio and Healthtech Sectors 

28 Apr

The firm funds and co-founds early-stage companies using AI to transform the future of healthcare. The firm invests in US-based techbio and healthtech companies at the Seed and Series A stages, more often at Seed. The typical check sizes range from $0.5M-3M and the firm reserves for follow-on rounds. 
 
The firm’s sectors of focus include biopharma tech and services, precision medicine, life sciences SaaS and tools, novel care delivery, and novel payment models. The firm does not invest in pure therapeutics or medical devices. 
 
The firm does not have strict management team requirements; however, they look for founders who are knowledgeable domain experts with a bold vision for how their company will make a lasting contribution to the advancement of an industry or solve a massive healthcare challenge. As leaders, they build high-functioning teams and earn trust quickly. The firm may take a board or observer seat on a case-by-case basis, but it is not a requirement. 

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

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