Next Phase Newsletter

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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