How Europe could do better in stimulating innovative companies in the life sciences

In our weekly expert view piece Sander van Deventer, managing partner of Forbion Capital Partners, analyzes the challenges facing European start-ups and asks what could be done to improve the success of small biotech companies in Europe.

Europe has excellent universities that generate great science and valuable intellectual property that has formed the basis of breakthrough therapies.

However, the European biotechnology ecosystem is much smaller than its North American counterpart, the investments in private and public biotech companies in Europe are a fraction of the investments in the USA, and many European companies have crossed the Atlantic Ocean by listings on Nasdaq or by being acquired by American pharma or biotechnology companies.