Following Fresenius’ launch of a €200 million healthcare venture fund in July, we invited Thomas Thestrup, managing director of Fresenius Ventures, to share his perspective in the Autumn issue of European Biotechnology. His argument: Europe has the innovation and the corporate investment expertise to compete globally, but needs more capital from its own healthcare companies to prevent the value created by European science from moving elsewhere. Here’s what he had to say:
If you ask founders what determines whether they raise capital, most will give you the same answer: great science, compelling clinical data, a large market opportunity and a sensible valuation. For a long time, I would have given exactly the same answer, but I no longer do. After years of working with biotechnology companies, I have come to believe that those factors determine whether a company deserves investment, but they do not necessarily determine whether it gets the opportunity to be evaluated in the first place. Here’s why.
KJ Muldoon’s survival was not just a medical breakthrough. It was a glimpse of a new category of medicine, in which a genetic error can be corrected with the precision of an operation rather than developed as a conventional drug. Can Europe build the system that turns one extraordinary rescue into a repeatable model?
There’s uncertainty and concern about whether AI will replace humans in workplaces. But Marco Ravot-Licheri, Head of Digital – Life Sciences Business at Tecan, told us that AI could increase laboratory productivity and make research more meaningful.
Biotech’s biggest opportunity is not simply to generate more compounds faster, but to improve the biological hypotheses behind them and help focused companies turn shared datasets, better models and deep disease expertise into drugs more likely to work in patients.
European biotech is seeing both encouraging momentum and challenges. Innovation from European academia continues to inspire therapeutic concepts.
The recent resurgence of life sciences IPOs in the US highlights a persistent structural imbalance: Europe generates world-class science but struggles to finance and retain it. The European Life Sciences Coalition was created to address this gap by mobilizing institutional capital and strengthening the policy framework needed to scale European innovation at home.
The COVID 19 pandemic demonstrated that Europe can move fast, take risk, and deliver world class vaccines when political will, science and capital are aligned. Treating vaccines as strategic assets, backed by sustained political and financial support, will be key to maintaining Europe’s long-term investment in public health and innovation.
Capital is tight and patience is being tested. Yet Europe’s life sciences sector continues to deliver. Innovation doesn’t stop when markets turn; it adapts and matures.
After two challenging years marked by rising interest rates and frozen capital markets, European biotech is back in the spotlight. The catalyst? Late-stage clinical success.
Tecan
Scripta Therapeutics
Kurma Partners
Sofinnova Partners
Ethris GmbH
Sofinnova Partners
Stifel