VC Playbook

Success in life sciences venture funding requires drive and speed, says In Vivo Rising Leader, Clare Terlouw. But there is more to it than that.

Startup financing may be hard to come by, but now is not the time to ask for less cash. 

VC Playbook: Hubert Birner, managing partner for Montreal and Munich, is responsible for TVM Capital Life Science’s overall investment approach and global fund operations. At the November 2023 BIO-Europe conference, he sat down with In Vivo to discuss the VC’s strategy and expectations for the European life science sector in 2024.

VC Playbook: Bradley Hardiman, senior director of business development at Astellas Venture Management, discusses setting a CVC strategy when the biopharma market is in a “state of flux.”  

Getting out the gates early is usually the playbook for VC, however when it comes to new technologies with untested commercial pipelines, waiting and seeing may be a smarter approach.

Created by Steve Lehmann, director of venture operations at Portal Innovations, Stargaze is an artificial intelligence platform that maps the structure of biotechnology innovation and uses that knowledge to identify fruitful startups.

Biomedical engineering graduate Cécile Dupont has for the past 12 years helped healthcare technology businesses develop disruptive solutions that positively impact patients’ lives. The current chapter of her career opened in 2017 when she joined Sofinnova MD Start, the early-stage medtech incubator of VC investor Sofinnova Partners, where she is a partner.

Sofinnova Partners has played a key role in defining the medtech investment space for the past 50 years, helping bring to market a plethora of life-saving technologies, even when they appear, initially, to be risky.

Early-stage companies need to be more flexible on the financing terms they are willing to accept and in finding ways to gather evidence to support the impact of their products or services.

Debbie Dumont, co-founder of Bioqube Ventures, and one of In Vivo’s Rising Leaders, talks about the company’s investment model, Europe’s translational challenges, and aligning  passion and purpose to find ultimate fulfilment.

Andrew ElBardissi, partner on Deerfield Management’s medical technologies team, spoke to In Vivo sister publication Medtech Insight about the fund’s investment strategy, the changing face of medtech, and how investment in the life sciences sector will continue to change post-COVID.

Investors at the Advanced Therapies Europe conference in London struck a bullish note on the state of the market and offered up advice for cell and gene developers from fundraising, platform development to manufacturing.