The New Insider Game In Latin America Biotech

VC Playbook: Grooming Local Start-Ups With Growth Potential – On Both Sides Of The Equator

08 Mar 2021

• By William Looney

Venture capital funds in Latin America have overlooked biotech, leaving an untapped opportunity for local capital markets and US and European investors alike. Chilean entrepreneur Cristian Hernandez, founder of newly launched boutique VC Zentynel Frontier Investments, explains how business – and society – can benefit from launching biotech start-ups able to serve a global market at lower cost.

Cristian Hernandez, Founder, VC Zentynel Frontier Investments

Here is a contrarian thought: while Latin American countries have suffered the world’s sharpest economic reversal due to COVID-19, some enterprising local investors think it is time to put serious money behind the region’s nascent market in biotech and life sciences. The driver is the way that structural changes exposed by the virus actually work to the advantage of Latin America and other developing countries. We know how great science today depends less on proximity to prestige institutions with deep pockets. Bench collaboration is moving to the cloud; the software to conduct complex medicinal chemistry is widely accessible; and genetic sequencing is easier, less expensive and more accurate. In addition, as COVID-related lockdowns force investors to seek out unfamiliar targets in deploying their abundant unused cash reserves, the in-person “due diligence” associated with traditional investment vehicles are being conducted remotely. Ubiquitous broadband technologies provide the visual cues that were once critical to sealing a deal.

“In Latin America you already have technologies that make it very easy to align with the major centers of private...