Next Phase Newsletter

By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

Raising capital is rarely about finding more investors. It’s about finding the right investors, telling the right story, and consistently building relationships that lead to meaningful opportunities. Additionally and importantly, it is about having a dedicated resource that finds those investors, reaches out to them regularly, and secures meetings with them.

Life Science Nation’s BD Assist program was created to help early-stage life science companies do exactly that by making Life Science Nation into that dedicated resource.

BD Assist is LSN’s premier business development program, providing startups with an experienced team dedicated to advancing their fundraising and partnering efforts throughout the year. Designed for companies seeking investment, licensing opportunities, or strategic collaborations, the program combines targeted investor research, strategic messaging, personalized outreach, and ongoing business development support into one comprehensive solution.

Every engagement begins by refining the company’s investment narrative and marketing materials to ensure they clearly communicate the value of the technology, market opportunity, and growth strategy. From there, Life Science Nation identifies and prioritizes a highly targeted global audience of investors and strategic partners whose interests align with the company’s stage, therapeutic area, and business objectives.

With the strategy in place, LSN launches and manages a personalized outreach campaign on the company’s behalf, tracking every interaction through the client’s CRM platform. Outreach is continuously refined based on engagement, allowing companies to build momentum over time while maintaining visibility with investors and corporate partners actively seeking new opportunities.

Clients also benefit from regular strategy discussions, ongoing campaign optimization, and access to Life Science Nation’s extensive global investor ecosystem. For companies participating in RESI conferences, BD Assist extends that support by managing partnering activities and helping maximize high-value meeting opportunities throughout the event.

Unlike traditional consulting services that provide recommendations, BD Assist becomes an extension of your business development team. LSN handles the day-to-day execution so your leadership can remain focused on advancing the science, growing the business, and preparing for meaningful investor conversations.

Whether you are preparing for your first institutional raise, expanding into new markets, or pursuing strategic partnerships, BD Assist provides the expertise, infrastructure, and execution to help accelerate your fundraising journey.

If your goal is to spend less time searching for investors and more time building relationships with the right ones, BD Assist was built for you.

Ready to activate your global roadshow? Click here to fill out the LSN Labs company assessment report and we’ll be in touch with you soon.

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By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

Securing investment is rarely about delivering the perfect pitch. Successful fundraising is built on understanding how investors evaluate opportunities, developing meaningful relationships, and communicating a compelling value proposition that stands up to diligence.

On Thursday, July 9, at 12:00 PM ET, Life Science Nation will bring together an outstanding panel of active life science investors for an in-depth discussion on what it takes to raise capital in today’s investment environment. The webinar will feature George Voren, VP of Founder Strategy and Operations at Curie.Bio; Yaniv Sneor, Founder of Mid Atlantic Bio Angels; Anna Crespo Puig, Investment Analyst at AdBio Partners; and Ankita Das, Senior Venture Development Associate, Therapeutics, at NLC Health Ventures. Together, they represent a diverse range of investment perspectives spanning venture creation, angel investing, venture capital, and strategic venture development.

George Voren Curie.Bio	Yaniv Sneor Mid Atlantic Bio Angels
Anna Crespo Puig AdBio Partners	Ankita Das NLC Health Ventures

Moderated by Life Science Nation, the conversation is designed to deliver actionable insights for entrepreneurs preparing to raise capital, whether they are beginning their fundraising journey or actively engaging investors.

As market conditions continue to evolve, founders are navigating an increasingly competitive fundraising landscape. This webinar will provide practical guidance on how investors are approaching new opportunities, what they expect to see in executive summaries and pitch decks, how entrepreneurs can secure productive investor meetings both inside and outside partnering conferences, and the common mistakes that can derail an otherwise promising opportunity. The panel will also discuss what founders should expect once discussions move beyond a confidentiality agreement and into deeper diligence.

Reserve your spot today and join Life Science Nation on July 9 at 12:00 PM ET for this timely discussion.

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By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

As RESI San Diego approaches, Life Science Nation has been helping founders and executives prepare for investor conversations through a three-part webinar series focused on one of the most important challenges in life science fundraising: transforming strong science into a compelling investment opportunity.

The first two sessions in the series explored why many promising companies struggle to attract capital despite strong technology and how founders can better communicate risk reduction, investment readiness, and strategic value to investors.

Webinar Recording: De-Risking, Shaping, and Micro-Investment

In this session, Rick Berenson, partner to Dennis Ford in the Anchor Node project and co-author of Dissecting Return and Risk: A Framework for Financing Life Science Startups, examined how investors evaluate risk across early-stage companies and why scientific promise alone is rarely enough to secure funding.

The discussion explored the role of micro-investment as an early filtering mechanism, the importance of systematically reducing risk across the development pathway, and how founders can shape scientific assets into investable opportunities capable of attracting institutional capital.

Webinar Recording: From Pitch Deck to De-Risk Deck

Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Science Nation, challenged the traditional approach to fundraising presentations by introducing the concept of the “de-risk deck.”

The webinar explored why investors focus on evidence of risk reduction rather than vision alone and why capital flows toward companies that clearly communicate scientific, regulatory, execution, and commercialization progress. Dennis also discussed investor targeting, outreach strategy, and the realities of navigating a successful life science fundraising campaign.

Final Webinar: Science to Signal

June 18, 2026 | 1:00 PM ET

The webinar series concludes this Thursday with Science to Signal, presented by Max Braht and Karen Deyo.

This session introduces the Science to Signal framework, a practical system designed to help life science startups translate scientific achievements into clear investment signals. Attendees will learn how the framework aligns development strategy with investor risk assessment, supports enterprise implementation within incubators and innovation programs, and helps founders better communicate progress to potential investors and partners.

Register for Science to Signal

Whether you are actively fundraising, preparing for partnering meetings, or refining your investment story, this webinar series provides practical frameworks for improving investor engagement and positioning your company for more productive capital formation discussions.

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By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

Partnering conferences are a great place to meet investors, in-licensors and strategic partners. These events tend to be segmented in the following ways:

1) Focus: General, Licensing/BD or Investment

2) Modality: Biotech, Device/Diagnostics, Digital Health

3) Therapeutic area: General or Therapeutic area-specific

4) Stage: General or Early Stage

While it seems obvious, it is critical to align your events (and your limited time and budget) with your company objectives. In my experience at dozens of different partnering conference, I’ve found that each of the above are largely binary. For example, while a Licensing/BD conference will have some investors attending, you’ll have many more meetings with investors at a investment-focused meeting. And vice-versa. Additionally, an interesting pattern that I’ve noticed is when it comes to stage, a partnering event that has a general focus tends to skew late-stage (clinical or later, with lots of players looking for phase 3 or commercial assets). This leaves companies with preclinical or early clinical assets scrambling to identify and meet the relatively few investors who are interested in early-stage companies.

Since partnering conferences allow for a limited number of outgoing meeting requests that can be in the ‘requested’ state, it’s important for you to be able to identify the attending investors that are a good fit for your company. This is complicated by the fact that investors typically don’t do a stellar job populating their profile with information that makes their remit clear. While it may be tempting to use the filters provided by the partnering system to identify best-fit investors, this ONLY works if every investor profile is consistently populated. Why? Because blank values are not returned in filtered searches. What does that mean? That means that if you use the filters in the partnering system to look for those who invest in oncology, and there are some oncology investors who have not filled out their therapeutic area field in their profile, those investors will not be returned in the results. Some partnering conference providers, such as RESI, prevent this issue by having the staff populate the investor profiles on behalf of the investors, ensuring that all profiles are complete and searchable.

All that said, what do you need to look for to find the investors that fit your company best? The most important criteria (that you probably know already if you’ve done any investor outreach) is stage. “Too early” is a response that every pre-clinical and phase 1 company has heard a million times. At RESI it’s easy. You can filter accurately on stage. But at other conferences that depend on the investor to self-populate their profile, you’ll have to read the profile carefully and visit the website. If it doesn’t say explicitly, then look at the portfolio companies.

The next aspect is the assets under management and the check size range. This kind of information not only shows if the investor is appropriate for the amount you’re raising, but also shows if the investor is indeed an investor and not a financial consultancy or investment bank (in some conferences, such entities end up being classified as investors).

Next, and as alluded to above, is the therapeutic area focus. While many investors go across therapeutic areas, some focus on only one or a few.

Next is the modality. Of course if you’re a med tech investor you don’t want to target a biotech-only investor. Within biotech, there are some investors that only do advanced therapies and some who do everything except advanced therapies. Etc.

Next there is the geographic focus. Some investors target specific geographies.

Finally, there is the investor type or model. Not all investors are equity investors. Some are debt, some royalty, some are venture builders, some are CROs that provide services for equity, etc.

If you have access, looking up the investor in Life Science Nation’s investor database will return all the details you need with regard to the above. Other databases have information on investments a given investor made, which provides some insight. By ensuring the investor you send a meeting request to is actually suitable for your company, you’ll maximize your ROI and, with any luck, extend your cash runway.

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By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

As partnering activity ramps up ahead of convention week in San Diego, early-stage life science companies are preparing for a critical week of fundraising, licensing, and strategic business development. To help companies better understand how large pharmaceutical companies evaluate new opportunities, Life Science Nation is hosting a webinar featuring leaders from Merck, Servier, and Meiji Pharma USA.

The webinar, Large Pharma BD & Investment: Merck, Servier & Meiji Pharma Prep You for RESI & Convention, will take place on June 2, 2026 at 1:00 PM ET and will be moderated by Sougato Das.

Carla BauerDirector, Search and Evaluation, BD & Licensing Merck

Irene Blat, PhDHead of External Innovation, NA Servier

Sho TakahataSenior Director, Venture Investment Meiji Pharma USA

The discussion will explore how pharma companies source and evaluate external innovation, what teams look for during initial meetings, how internal screening processes work, and what makes a company stand out for continued engagement. Topics will also include licensing, R&D partnerships, strategic investment, platform collaborations, and practical tips for improving partnering conversations during convention week.

For companies preparing for RESI San Diego and broader convention week activity, the webinar offers an opportunity to hear directly from pharma business development and investment leaders before arriving in San Diego.

RESI San Diego begins June 22 with an in-person conference day followed by four days of virtual partnering on June 23–24 and June 29–30, connecting early-stage companies with active investors, pharma scouts, strategic partners, and global healthcare stakeholders.

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By Sougato Das, President and COO, LSN

The fourth week of June is one of the largest gatherings of life science business development and investment professionals on the calendar, second only to JPM. If you are an early-stage company raising anywhere from $250K to $75M, that week in San Diego is not optional. The question most founders are asking right now is whether attending RESI means missing BIO.

The short answer is no. Here is why.
RESI partnering starts early morning on June 22. BIO Convention partnering does not start until early afternoon. That means you can run a full morning of investor meetings at RESI before BIO gets going. The two venues are about 15 minutes apart, making it straightforward to move between them in the afternoon. RESI has virtual days both that week and the following week, so any meetings that do not fit in person can be held on Zoom with no schedule conflicts.

If you find yourself double booked across both events on Monday afternoon, the partnering systems give you real options. Move the Convention meeting to another day. Move the RESI meeting to the morning or to a virtual slot. Or simply decide which meeting matters more for your specific raise. Having choices is better than not having them.

Fundraising is a numbers game. Companies with tight budgets need to maximize every hour and dollar spent in San Diego each week. RESI is not a scheduling conflict. It is more meetings with investors and pharma external innovation teams that are specifically focused on early-stage deals. Add it to your agenda.

Bonus: Increase your networking ROI by attending the many side events and receptions during Convention week. Luckily we’ve assembled the most complete list for you! Click here.

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