Topic: Raising Venture Capital for Life Science Startups
Dr. Sophie Kornowski, Senior Partner at Gurnet Point Capital, will be joining us to discuss fundraising for life science startups. We will talk about the different types of funding and how venture capital differs from others. We will discuss what life science VCs look for in early-stage startups and how to approach investors. We will also discuss how to most effectively communicate with investors, and what you need to do to prepare a winning investor pitch. Finally, we will discuss the current life science venture funding trends and how the COVID-19 crisis impacting life science startups and VCs.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Sophie Kornowski joined Gurnet Point Capital in 2018 from Roche where she was Executive Vice-President of Roche Partnering. In that role she focused on establishing external partnerships with biotechnology and research institutions worldwide for Roche Holding AG, one of the world’s largest healthcare companies. She was also a member of Roche’s Extended Global Executive Committee.
Dr. Kornowski and her team completed over 50 deals per year in her role as head of partnering at Roche. Previously, she led Roche’s major affiliate for five years in France. Dr. Kornowski also spent 11 years in various leadership roles at Merck in the United States, France and Israel. She spent the early years of her career at Abbott and Sanofi, in France and the United States. Dr. Kornowski has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth and a PhD in Pharmacy from Paris Descartes University.
About the Workshop Series: This series of workshops is for early-stage life science founders from the Harvard Innovation Labs ecosystem. The workshop will focus specifically on business development, commercialization strategy, and product development strategy for life sciences and healthcare markets. Topics will include prioritization of indications/applications, competitor landscape analyses, intellectual property strategy, regulatory & payer/reimbursement strategy, partnerships & alliances with industry, and venture financing & fundraising strategy. The workshop will bring together founders in an informal setting with leaders from life science startups, industry, and venture capital for group discussions on these different topics. The series will include ‘homework’ given to the founders, which will then be shared and discussed with the group as a means to gain feedback and insights into other founder’s learning experiences. The workshop series will also serve the purpose of promoting a strong sense of community among the founders, allowing them to help one another through the challenges experienced as early-stage life science founders.
