Breakfast with biotech: Expert insights for early-stage innovators from Bio€quity Europe 2025

At Bio€quity Europe 2025, the premier investor conference for European biopharma, ICON was proud to contribute to the conversation shaping the future of early-stage innovation. ICON Biotech’s Sandra Eagle served as moderator of the Breakfast Workshop: De-risking early-stage biotech and facilitated a candid discussion with investors and biotech leaders on how companies can navigate today’s funding landscape with confidence and clarity.

Amid a persistently challenging macroeconomic environment, early-stage biotech companies are under increasing pressure to secure funding, define their path to market, and stand out to investors. The panel included:

Simon Kerry, Ph.D., CEO, Curve Therapeutics
Mariana Mihalusova, Ph.D., VP, Venrock
Donmienne Leung, Ph.D., Director, AbbVie
Stefan Luzi, Ph.D., Partner, Gilde Healthcare

Together, they shared pragmatic insights into today’s funding climate, what makes an opportunity investable, and how early-stage companies can position themselves for long-term success.

Below, we share key takeaways from the session.

A tough market, but not without opportunity

The current funding landscape remains turbulent, particularly for early-stage biotechs. While some companies continue to close major rounds, many others find it difficult to attract capital. Investors have shifted focus toward later-stage, technically de-risked assets backed by experienced teams. Contributing macro factors include:

A closed IPO window
Low M&A activity
Regulatory reshuffling, particularly in the US
NIH budget cuts and ongoing pricing pressure

Despite these headwinds, opportunities exist for early-stage innovators. Funds that remain active at the early stage see potential to build companies that will be ready to capitalise on a future rebound. Moonshot science and first-in-class approaches, when guided by a clear development path and strong leadership, can still be compelling.

What investors are looking for

“Investors have different risk profiles depending on their type of fund and type of company,” said ICON’s Sandra Eagle. She then opened the floor to discussion about balancing risk around assets and portfolios. While criteria do vary by fund, panellists shared a strong consensus on what makes an early-stage company stand out: leadership, market and medical needs, and scientific validation.

A credible and experienced team is essential, especially one that can be trusted to navigate inevitable setbacks. Investors want to be confident that the management team can work through challenges, and work through it together. Addressing unmet medical need and market size are still important filters for investors sifting through opportunities. Some investors may be more anchored to certain therapeutic areas while others are more open.

If the market and medical need make sense, the next thing investors are looking for is validation. Clinically validated biology, patient data or genetic insights add confidence and an element of de-risking. If the right scientific questions have been asked in early-stage validations, the generated data can provide more clarity into the potential downstream success of the asset. Panellists also noted that platform technologies that can extend existing drug portfolios or work in combination with approved therapies offer added appeal.

The importance of a clear strategy

Many early-stage companies underestimate the strategic planning needed to define their competitive edge and development pathway. CEOs should ask early on: What does success look like, and how will we get there?

Key steps include:

Surrounding the company with clinical and commercial advisers, including formal advisory boards and target selection committees
Building out a thoughtfully designed target product profile (TPP) early in the process
Clearly communicating a long-term vision to investors and the board

This type of structured approach helps guide internal decision-making and also strengthens the company’s pitch for external stakeholders.

Balancing innovation and risk

The panel highlighted the delicate balance between pursuing novel science and managing risk in a portfolio. Investors continue to back both first-in-class and best-in-class approaches, but each comes with different expectations:

Best-in-class opportunities can attract significant competition and require fast, flawless execution. Investors may look for proven teams and significant infrastructure to support operational excellence and accelerated speed to market.

First-in-class allows for more scientific exploration and may carry higher biological risk but offers greater potential upside.

For many biotechs, the choice between novel modalities or incremental innovation in more familiar mechanisms is complex. Open-mindedness and robust advisory input are essential to making the right selections here. The balance between the options will be different depending on the platform. Even decisions like choosing a target and then developing the functional screening assays carry a significant resource load, and taking the wrong direction could cost 3-6 months of work from 2-3 of your experts. Making the right calls early and understanding their impacts is crucial for the overall strategy.

The role of data and killer experiments

Early, decisive data is critical. Investors want to see companies run their most rigorous experiments, the "killer experiments”, as soon as possible as part of a fail fast strategy. Clear outcomes, whether positive or negative, help refine strategy and increase investor confidence in progressing the asset to the next stage.

The investors and biotech panellists emphasised the importance of designing early studies to truly test the core scientific assumptions and get clear-cut data. Grey data, ambiguous data, will delay or muddle decision-making.

Sandra Eagle noted that during the conference, she had several conversations that centred on this topic. Specifically, that “one of the problems that sponsors are facing is actually designing the right experiment and being able to get sufficient funding to take it to its conclusion.”

Panellists responded that CEOs should consistently challenge assumptions, seek feedback and iterate quickly based on results. “Question everything,” as one panellist said, be open to collaboration to tap into knowledge from other companies. Importantly, be brave enough to use that knowledge to create killer experiments and data generation plans that align with investor expectations and regulatory requirements.

Strategic funding: Think beyond traditional VC

While venture capital remains a primary funding source, alternative capital strategies can help companies stay on track. Panellists mentioned mission-based investors and disease foundations, grant funding and tapping into the network of industry veterans to bring them closer to investment decision-makers. For certain therapeutics, mission-based organisations may be more interested in progressing specific assets as they are less constrained by broader macro trends and more aligned with specific scientific goals.

Overall, the consensus was to do the groundwork on potential investors. Companies should understand what each fund is looking for and tailor outreach accordingly to avoid wasting time on misaligned pitches.

The role of resilience, creativity and trust

The panellists closed with a message of cautious optimism. The current environment is difficult, but cycles shift. Those who build strong teams, run rigorous science, and maintain a clear strategic vision will be best positioned to capitalise on the next upswing.

It was an honour to be involved again in shaping the conversation at Bio€quity Europe. This conference represents a vital locus of energy, information and innovation that sparks strategies and solutions as the biotech industry evolves. At ICON, we understand the complexity of the journey biotech leaders face. Our experience across the investment, clinical and commercial landscape allows us to support early-stage companies with insight, strategy and execution that moves them forward.

Connect with us to learn how ICON can support biotech organisations to optimise their funding, development and operational strategies.

Breakfast with biotech