Europe’s Early-Stage Life Sciences Venture Capitalists Unveil Advocacy Organisation to Drive Innovation and Investment in Health Care

Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance aims to bring about policy changes that will drive continued innovation and create an ecosystem addressing unmet medical needs.

PARIS & MUNICH & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#HTID3--Today, at the HealthTech Innovations Days in Paris, the Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance (LSAA) advocacy coalition was announced to industry leaders and life science venture capitalists (VCs). The new non-profit coalition, driven by the life sciences organisations and investors, will advocate for public policies that strengthen Europe’s early-stage life science ecosystem and drive innovation. LSAA will have three hubs across the continent – France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The coalition will focus on informing policymakers on the unique and complex partnerships that drive medical innovation and investment for new medical treatments for patients. LSAA will also convene expert panels and share evidence-based reports with key stakeholders to raise awareness of the value of early-stage investors and supportive policies in Europe.

“LSAA will give voice to a critical, but often overlooked, segment of the discovery pipeline: the private capital that funds these novel treatments and cures,” Yann Le Flohic, LSAA France Country Director. “The organisation’s fundamental aim is to provide a European platform to boost funding in the HealthTech sector, and our objective is to support the life sciences industry with a pathway to engage national policymakers in key markets across Europe.”

LSAA’s agenda will be driven and supported by an experienced and independent Advisory Council comprised of key players, including Sascha Berger, Partner at TVM Capital; Cornelia Yzer, former German Secretary of State for Economics, Research and Technology; and Bernard J Grimm, Healthcare Biotechnology Director at EuropaBio. Together, LSAA will advocate for strong intellectual property protections and enforcement, value-based pricing of innovative medicines in government healthcare programmes, and other policies that ensure patient access policies to improve quality care across Europe.

“Too long VCs have sat back and watched while policies that impact our portfolio companies were made without us,” said Sascha Berger, Partner, TVM Capital. “We need to bring our expertise and views to policy makers. That is why I take an active role in LSAA.”

In order to successfully drive innovation and investment in healthcare, LSAA’s objectives include:

• Effecting policy change across Europe that embrace and support early-stage investment in R&D and new technologies to address unmet medical needs;
• Creating a value-based market environment across the healthcare sector in Europe; and
• Supporting like-minded member organizations while building an ecosystem and a network of alliances for a shared cause.

Representatives from LSAA will be at HTID, with France Country Director Yann Le Flohic presenting a keynote on day one. For more information and a full list of our founding Advisory Council members or to join LSAA, please visit www.acceleratelifescience.org.

About Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance

Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance is a coalition of investors, scientific and corporate leaders dedicated to strengthening life sciences research and development in Europe. Our mission is to give a voice to the early-stage life science ecosystem in Europe – the investors and incubators that drive innovation.

With hubs in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, we are working with industry champions to make Europe a leader in global biopharmaceutical research and entrepreneurial commercialisation. We want to ensure that our critical role is better understood and that policy in Europe evolves toward embracing medical discovery and access to the benefit of patients. Please visit our website for more information: www.acceleratelifescience.org.

Media:
Jide Adesesan
media@acceleratelifescience.org