Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 106 - Gemma Guinart Mola - Principal at Invivo Partners

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Episode 106 - Gemma Guinart Mola - Principal at Invivo Partners · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:04
  So today on the podcast, we welcome Gemma Guinard of In Vivo
• 0:08
  Partners. Gemma's a Principal and Vivo.
• 0:11
  They're a renowned European life sciences VC firm focused on
• 0:16
  early stage biotech investment headquartered in Barcelona.
• 0:19
  Gemma joins us today basically to talk through there a little
• 0:23
  bit about their strategy, a little bit about a few examples
• 0:26
  from their portfolio and why Barcelona is growing as a hope
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  for European biotech as well. Gemma, welcome to the pod.
• 0:34
  How are you? Yeah, thank you.
• 0:36
  Thank you so much for having me. It's it's a pleasure to be here.
• 0:39
  And yeah, looking forward to the chat.
• 0:43
  Awesome, Cool. Do you want to start off with
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  just a little bit of a introduction to yourself?
• 0:48
  Yeah, sure. So as mentioned, I'm Gemma and
• 0:51
  Principal Latin Vivo Partners venture capital funds located
• 0:54
  here in Barcelona and investing in early stage and take transfer
• 0:58
  opportunities. On my background, I have a
• 1:01
  scientific background with a Master's on project management
• 1:04
  within the biopharma sector and abuzzaled course in financing.
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  And before transitioning into venture capital, I worked in
• 1:12
  technology transfer in a public university located here in
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  Barcelona. And then, a bit more than five
• 1:19
  years and a half ago, I joined in Vivo.
• 1:22
  Nice. Awesome.
• 1:24
  And in vivo, the clue's in the name, right?
• 1:25
  In terms of the, the, I guess the strategy of the, the track
• 1:30
  that you guys follow. Do you want to walk us through a
• 1:32
  little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:35
  So In Vivo Partners is one of the first Spanish venture
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  capital funds investing in early stage in the healthcare sector.
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  And as of today, we are managing 3 different biotech funds.
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  So the first fund was called HealthEquity.
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  And this was a very small fund, €14 million under management and
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  it's fully invested. We invested in several companies
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  and already got several liquidity events, SO2M and A
• 2:00
  exits and another company licensed out some of its assets.
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  Then the second fund is in Vivo Ventures.
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  This fund is managing 60 million euros and it's also in the
• 2:13
  investment period. And actually earlier this year,
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  we got our first exit, which was the acquisition of ESO Biotech
• 2:20
  by AstraZeneca for a total deal value of $1 billion.
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  And right now, we're investing out of our third fund, in vivo
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  venture St., and this fund is targeting €100 million and we're
• 2:34
  already in an investment position.
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  So in terms of the investment thesis, as mentioned, we have a
• 2:39
  very focused investment strategy, investing in early
• 2:43
  stage and tech transfer. We do this exclusively within
• 2:46
  the therapeutics space and with a strong focus on advanced
• 2:50
  therapies and synthetic biology. And as you were mentioning, we
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  are called in vivo for a reason. So we typically invest whenever
• 2:58
  there's an in vivo proof of concept available for the lead
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  asset. And in terms of ticket size with
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  this new fund, we are investing between two and €4,000,000
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  initial ticket and then we can follow up follow on up to 8 or
• 3:12
  €10 million per company. And we are investing across
• 3:16
  across Europe with a special focus in in Spain.
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  Nice, nice. I know this is a pretty big
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  question, big area to cover, but why do you guys look to early
• 3:28
  stage? Why do you play in that that
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  area I guess. So I would say that, of course,
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  I'm a bit biased because my previous experience was in tech
• 3:38
  transfer and I really like to work in this space.
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  But from the investor's perspective, I would say that we
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  really think that when you back the right science and a great
• 3:49
  team, investments in early stage can really generate outsized
• 3:53
  returns. So that's why we are investing
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  in this space because we think that that's where the most value
• 4:00
  happens. Sure, gotcha.
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  I guess it's bigger risk, bigger reward potentially as well,
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  right, So. Yeah.
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  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you talked a bit about
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  the back in the right science and back in the right team
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  there. You guys do a lot of company
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  creation right as well. Is that another reason that
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  you're playing in that space because of the experience and
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  the team that you can bring into those companies to help them?
• 4:29
  Yeah, translate into the clinic. Yeah.
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  So I would say that our approach in in the T biotech funds that
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  we have has been very particular because we typically look for
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  the problems that we want to solve for the unmet medical
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  needs we want to focus on. And then we look for the best
• 4:49
  science out there. And then we just kind of try to
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  build the company around it. So this means that we are in
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  close contact with our scientific founders, academic
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  groups and tech transfer offices from from since day one
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  actually. And and yeah, this is how we
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  typically approach this company Creation Ventures.
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  Yeah. Nice.
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  Is there any of it you want to particularly highlight at the at
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  the moment, any recent studies that you recent companies that
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  you've worked with at that that state that you'd maybe want to
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  shine a light on or? Yeah, of course.
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  So I think that a company that I am particularly proud of is, is
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  the first investment that I worked on here at in Vivo.
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  This is Integra Therapeutics. And it's funny because I was
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  actually a project manager for this project back in the
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  academia when I was working in the tech transfer office.
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  So it was very nice to see the translation from the academia
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  from the tech tech transfer site.
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  And then from the invest investors perspective, because
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  from in vivo, we joined the the seat among other investors.
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  And it's funny because I'm actually the principal
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  investigator of this project was already in in close contact with
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  within Vivo because he was named like a scientist of interest.
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  This is a terminology that we use quite often when we want to
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  invest in particular areas. And he was having lunch from
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  time to time with Louise, the managing partner of the fund, so
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  that they could exchange ideas, right.
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  So let's say that the, the, the relationship between the two
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  parties was already established even before the company was
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  created. And then when they generated
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  that like the right data package, we decided to to invest
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  in the siege round. And now what they are doing is
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  basically developing a platform technology, working in the gene
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  writing space in a way that they can integrate in a site directed
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  manner big cargos. And they can do this both for
• 6:50
  genetic disease, but also for oncology indications.
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  This is of course an area that is very capital intensive.
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  But the good thing is that this company has had like a strong
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  investor base since the very beginning.
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  So that's would be one of the main examples that I have, but I
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  I can maybe it's. A nice thing that like you said
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  about the almost like a scouting network of of scientists that
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  you guys know and keep in touch with around Europe.
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  And yeah, it must be yeah, pretty intensive to to keep a
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  track of all those relationships and know when's the right time.
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  It's a very yeah, I guess it's a bit of a long game, right.
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  You like you said you've known that that individual, that
• 7:38
  company for for many years and then it comes with the the right
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  data package. Do you want to dig into a little
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  bit, maybe not necessarily solely about their data package,
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  but what what makes yeah, what makes that timing right?
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  What? What do they have to come with?
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  I guess for you guys to then say, yeah, this is this is the
• 7:57
  right time. So I would say that the ideal
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  that a package depends on the therapeutic modality and
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  indication that each company is working on.
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  But there are some principles that we as investors are always
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  looking for and we say that we are always trying to to find the
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  WOW slide. And the WOW slide would be like
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  that specific slide in the presentation where they are
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  showing great results, right. And this is of course for us an
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  in vivo proof of concept with the animal model of the
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  indication that they want to focus on ideally showing
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  superiority over the standard of care or over a closest
• 8:36
  competitor and measuring the right endpoints.
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  So to give you an example, for instance, in oncology, we would
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  rather see a validation in an orthotopic, orthotopic model
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  using patient derived cells over a subcutaneous model with cell
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  lines. Then we would measure both
• 8:57
  survival and tumor volume. And ideally we would like to see
• 9:03
  stand alone efficacy, even though we understand that in the
• 9:07
  clinical practice this product will be probably in combination
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  with other tracks, the farmer is actually requesting this
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  monotherapy efficacy. So this would be a requirement
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  for us. Jim, I like the idea of a wild
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  slide as well, opening it up in the presentation.
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  Yeah, you've got to have something that really stands out
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  for sure. And I mean, going back to the
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  point you made about the relationships that you have with
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  these scientists and keeping in touch with a lot of different
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  people all at once, I know the science is obviously important
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  and you're looking to solve a problem.
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  What importance do you put on the founding team?
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  Because I guess that's the bit that you can change, right.
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  In companies, I mean, we work in recruitment.
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  That's that's sort of our job in many ways.
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  How much do you put an emphasis or emphasis story on?
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  Yeah, on the founding team. So, so I would say that as
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  mentioned right, we start from the science and whenever the
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  science is is compelling, then the next key part of the
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  equation would be the theme for us.
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  Since we are investing in early stage, we help a lot the
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  companies to build the management, but we still will
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  take a lot of effort into looking for founders, scientific
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  founders that are really committed to the project and
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  that they are kind of exceptional in doing what what
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  they are doing. Of course, we understand that
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  their involvement will probably be decreased by the time that
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  the project advances and gets into the clinics.
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  But the in early stages we really need a scientific team
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  which is committed to the project.
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  Yeah, cool. OK.
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  So priority, I guess goes problem science theme in terms
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  of order, how many cents? Cool.
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  I mean for founding teens and these scientists out there, you
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  know, developing their programs and, you know, doing these
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  preclinical models, are there any sort of things that you look
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  out for that are the opposite of a wow factor?
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  Like, they're a little bit of a warning sign for you that, you
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  know, you're always keeping an eye out for and maybe, yeah,
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  stuff that people couldn't look to avoid, I guess.
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  Yeah. So I think one of the things
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  that we kind of focus on is on the equity story.
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  So in these early stages, we think it's very important to to
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  calculate very accurately, let's say how much money the project
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  needs to raise in order to get to the next inflection point so
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  that devaluation doesn't become unrealistic at this stage.
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  So we sometimes see a lot of our subscribed SIT rounds in these
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  early stages which which we don't really like.
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  We prefer to keep the company as much capital efficient as
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  possible and in order to do so we encourage founders to
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  carefully think how much money is needed to get to this next
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  milestone and then try to leverage as much non dilutive
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  funding as possible. That would one of the main
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  things we pay attention to and and maybe a second one could be
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  what we call solutions looking for a problem.
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  So we are receiving a lot of deal flow opportunities and
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  sometimes we believe that there can be a very beautiful
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  technology, but it's not specifically addressing a
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  patient need. So that would be kind of a red
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  flag for us or a no goal. So we really need to have a
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  strong link between the scientific rationale and the
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  problem that the company wants to address.
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  Yeah, I like that second point particularly.
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  Like science for science sake, basically like it's just there
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  to to look good and yeah, it's amazing how it works, but it
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  doesn't really do anything to help patients.
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  I think the point you raised about the finances, yeah,
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  capital efficiency is much easier to to keep in mind.
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  And then yeah, capital indigestion, I guess more
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  companies struggle with that when they have too much money
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  basically to and start spending it pretty wildly on things that
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  they don't necessarily need to do then then yeah, was it.
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  So yeah, particularly in today's market or maybe the past couple
• 13:38
  of years market having a clear route to your next milestone,
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  whether that's clinical data or whatever, it's really important
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  for sure. I mean you guys are a little bit
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  of a maybe not on Anomaly, but yeah, definitely there's been a
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  shift the past couple of years to later stage invest in DE
• 13:56
  risking. Yeah.
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  What's the future do you think for VC similar to yourselves
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  focused at the early phase, do you think cash flow will come
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  back into to that space or? I think that the early stage
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  investors that are investing in this space really will stay
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  here. They will probably diversify
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  their investments in other areas.
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  And for instance, for in vivo, a way of diversifying has been OK,
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  we will keep on investing in early stage biotech, but instead
• 14:27
  of going to clinical stage biotech, we will open like a new
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  vertical, right. So in our case, we decided to
• 14:34
  diversify by, well, we, we just started fundraising for a new
• 14:39
  fund, which is going to be like the 4th fund.
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  And this fund is well has a totally different investment
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  thesis because the idea here will be investing in companies
• 14:50
  that are working at the intersection of artificial
• 14:53
  intelligence and science. Of course, science broadly
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  speaking, we understand that most of the of the investments
• 15:02
  will probably come from the healthcare sector, but we will
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  also look at other scientific disciplines beyond healthcare.
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  So in our case, we will keep on doing early stage, but our
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  diversification has come with getting a new fund into another
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  field let's say. Yeah, makes sense.
• 15:22
  Makes sense. And you're still adding to the
• 15:24
  third fund, right? I think you've, you've announced
• 15:26
  2 investments so far. How many are you looking at
• 15:30
  making there? Because I think you've got six
• 15:31
  or seven in the previous ones, if not more, right?
• 15:34
  So with this fund we aim to have between 10:00 and 12:00
• 15:38
  portfolio companies. So right now we just have close
• 15:43
  to and we are actively looking for new opportunities.
• 15:46
  So that's a call for every entrepreneur, an interesting
• 15:51
  project. We would be happy to take a look
• 15:54
  at it. Yeah, Keep your eyes build on on
• 15:56
  their announcements from you guys.
• 15:58
  Yeah, for sure. Nice.
• 15:59
  I mean, you mentioned at the start of the piece that you're
• 16:02
  really focused on European biotech as well.
• 16:05
  I mean, obviously it's a really competitive global landscape
• 16:08
  with the US and the increasing role of China in biotech as
• 16:12
  well. And Europe seems to have really
• 16:15
  strong science, but you'll know better than me in that sense.
• 16:18
  Do you think there's problems translating that into sort of
• 16:21
  later stage companies or Yeah. And where do you think the
• 16:25
  bottlenecks are in in Europe? I think that right now with the
• 16:32
  competition out there, we really need to to be fast into getting
• 16:36
  into the clinics. And for instance, I have a
• 16:39
  really nice example with EZO Biotech actually.
• 16:41
  So when we decided to invest in EZO Biotech, this was the only
• 16:48
  European company working in the in vivo generation of cars and
• 16:53
  there were other companies in the US ahead of us and closer to
• 16:57
  the clinics. So when we started fundraising
• 16:59
  for this company, all VCs were telling, you know guys that's
• 17:05
  cool science, but you are too early, this is too risky and
• 17:08
  there are competitors are competitors ahead of you.
• 17:11
  So the CEO got back to the board with a very innovative or
• 17:18
  creative solution for us, which was to run an investigator
• 17:22
  initiated trial in China in a way that we could speed up the
• 17:27
  development timeline in a very cost efficient way and prove
• 17:31
  safety and efficacy in humans. And this was actually what
• 17:36
  triggered the interest of AstraZeneca to acquire the
• 17:38
  company. This was a very novel way of
• 17:42
  getting into the clinics for us. But I'm sure that now many of
• 17:45
  the companies will try to follow this path in order to be
• 17:49
  competitive. Yeah.
• 17:50
  Yeah, I guess historically wouldn't necessarily associate
• 17:53
  speed with with Europe in, in, in general for that's not not
• 17:57
  just in biotech, but that's in a ton of different industries.
• 17:59
  But yeah, I think leveraging or harnessing the the speed that
• 18:04
  yeah, China particularly can bring is, yeah, super
• 18:08
  interesting for a lot of companies.
• 18:09
  Nice, Awesome. And a one final quick point,
• 18:13
  because we haven't talked about this yet, but you guys are
• 18:15
  obviously headquartered in Barcelona.
• 18:17
  And yeah, there's really a sense, I guess over the past few
• 18:20
  years that not just in the VC world, but particularly in the
• 18:24
  early stage biotech community, there's something definitely
• 18:27
  building out there for sure. And is there anything you put
• 18:30
  that down to particularly, or is it just a nice melting pot of
• 18:35
  cultures and it's just a coincidence?
• 18:38
  No, no. I mean there are many things
• 18:40
  that I think are the reason for Barcelona to become one of the
• 18:44
  main innovation hubs in Spain. The first one I would say is the
• 18:48
  science. I mean, in here we have
• 18:50
  outstanding science, which is competitive both from a quality
• 18:55
  but also from a cost perspective.
• 18:58
  Then during the last years, we've seen the VC network
• 19:02
  increasing and now we have local and international investors that
• 19:07
  are really active in the space, which at the same time makes the
• 19:11
  ecosystem grow. Then I would say that Barcelona
• 19:16
  in particular has made a big effort in getting a, in becoming
• 19:21
  a leader in the advanced therapist field and in chemical
• 19:23
  translation. And this is thanks to the
• 19:25
  leading hospitals, research centers and universities that we
• 19:29
  have here that make this possible.
• 19:31
  And of course, last but not least, the quality of life in
• 19:35
  Barcelona is great, not just because the food and the
• 19:38
  weather, but I think that this is a nice way or a nice strategy
• 19:42
  to to get talent in here and and return this talent in here,
• 19:48
  right? So now we can see that people
• 19:50
  from abroad really want to be here and build a career in
• 19:54
  Barcelona, which is great news for the whole ecosystem.
• 19:58
  Yeah, definitely, if you can. Firstly, if you have the strong
• 20:01
  academia, you have the strong research and you can bring in
• 20:05
  people from around the world to actually translate that into
• 20:10
  clinically relevant programs. That's that's a winning solution
• 20:13
  for sure. Nice, awesome.
• 20:15
  I know you said you still look on the lookout for for founders
• 20:18
  and early stage teams. Is there any specific areas that
• 20:21
  you should that you'd really be keen to look at?
• 20:24
  I know you've mentioned advanced therapies, but in terms of
• 20:26
  indications or you know probiotic areas?
• 20:29
  So in terms of indications, we are actually agnostic.
• 20:32
  So as mentioned, we typically define the the problems that we
• 20:35
  want to solve and then we look for the best science or the best
• 20:39
  ability modality. Of course, there are indications
• 20:42
  that we prefer over others, but I would say that we are quite
• 20:47
  open in, in this sense. As long as there's a strong link
• 20:51
  between the innovative technology and the biology, we
• 20:55
  could take a look at any any type of project.
• 20:58
  Nice, awesome. Well, if you've got a problem to
• 21:01
  solve, anybody who's listening, you've identified some signs
• 21:04
  that you think can solve that, then yeah, reach out to Gemma
• 21:08
  and the guys at In Vivo for sure.
• 21:09
  Gemma has been great to have you on.
• 21:11
  Really appreciate the time and yeah, thanks for the insight
• 21:14
  into In Vivo. Yeah, Thank you.
• 21:16
  Thank you so much. It was great.
• 21:18
  Thank you for the invitation.