The road to Bio€quity Europe: navigating through talent & capital headwinds
Why Italy is now better placed to survive the talent, capital crunch
By Jeff Cranmer, Executive Editor
May 12, 2022 11:06 PM UTC
BioCentury
Industry’s dueling headwinds of capital and talent are the focus of this year’s Bio€quity Europe meeting, and in a special episode of BioCentury This Week, two veterans of the burgeoning Italian life sciences ecosystem say the country’s biotech sector now has the capital and networks to weather the storm. Challenges in transferring technology remain a hurdle.
Reflecting on the evolution of the biotech ecosystem in Europe over the past two decades, BioCentury co-founder and Chairman Karen Bernstein noted that the biggest differences include access to capital and more willingness to take risks.
“There’s more capital today in Europe than there was. There’s capital from the United States, and there’s a growing amount of partnering capital from Asia, which is quite, quite new,” Bernstein said. Risk-averse business models have given way to genomics, genetics and new modalities, she added, noting that today’s challenge lies in growing these ideas into big companies. “What we need to work on is translational follow-through and getting these to grow into big companies.”
The theme of 2022’s conference, which runs May 16-18 in person and digitally, is navigating industry’s crunch in capital and talent.
Graziano Seghezzi, managing partner of European VC Sofinnova Partners, said the time was right to choose Milan as the site of the conference, which is held each spring in a different European city.
“You actually do have an ecosystem now. Is it as big as other countries? No, but it is a complete ecosystem. And that allows the industry now to start growing and generating new ideas and financing new ideas,” Seghezzi said. “It is a new emerging country in the biotech arena. And it is an emerging ecosystem that is now finally ready to ignite. And I think that we’re going to see this very clearly in the next five years.”
He said that European companies and investors need to focus on the cash crunch, although he pointed out that early venture rounds demonstrate how much stronger European biotech has become.
He called the talent crunch “a big issue in Europe,” but did say that unlike in the U.S. it is more difficult to recruit talent than it is to retain talent. “In Europe, once you have recruited, people tend to stick to the companies for a little longer.”
Corrado Panzeri, partner and head of the Innovation & Technology Hub at The European House-Ambrosetti, agreed with Bernstein that tech transfer remains a challenge for the Italian ecosystem. But he said that growing networks in Italy, including those related to tech transfer are helping to address this.
“We know that technology transfer in Italy is one of our pain points because if we want to increase the performance of the country’s life sciences, we need to transfer these kinds of research to the market. And one helper is coming thanks to the financial system.”
Sofinnova Partners and Ambrosetti co-chair Bio€quity Europe’s regional host committee. Sofinnova is the conference’s founding sponsor.
Digital seats are still available for Bio€quity Europe, which kicks off May 16 in Milan. For information on how to sponsor BioCentury This Week and The BioCentury Show, please contact Sarah Shoaff at sarah.shoaff@biocentury.com.
