Evaluate a Norstella company
Evaluate a Norstella company
Event

Evaluate Financing Forum: Biotech Strategies for Accessing Capital

December 11,

2025

9.30 am - 1.30 pm,

London Hilton on Park Lane

Why attend
Agenda
Speakers
Register

You’re invited to a customer-exclusive half-day forum designed for biotech and biopharma innovators, investors, and senior leaders shaping the future of biopharma.

We’ll be bringing together biotech innovators, investors and senior leaders in Pharma for a morning of networking and education, followed by a networking lunch – and we’d love for you to join us.

Why attend?

  • Hear from VCs and Funded Founders
    Get real-world insights from both sides of the table: what works, what doesn’t, and how can you stand out in today’s competitive biotech landscape?
  • Understand the Future Funding Landscape
    Discover how AI is influencing investor decisions and where capital is flowing in 2026, with a data-led overview of biopharma trends.
  • Hear Stories of Striving & Thriving
    Two biotech journeys – one recently funded, one still in the early stages. Hear what they’ve learned and what they’re doing differently.
  • Network with Key Players Over Lunch
    Connect with a curated group of senior leaders from biopharma and finance during an exclusive networking lunch, designed to spark meaningful conversations and new opportunities.
  • Walk Away with Practical Guidance
    No fluff – just actionable advice, meaningful connections, and insights you can use.

Register today

This event has concluded. Register now to receive updates about the 2026 Financing Forum and gain access to the 2025 Financing Forum Content Hub.








Agenda

Time Session Speaker
9.30 am Registration + Breakfast
10.20 am Welcome Address Daniel Chancellor - VP, Thought Leadership, Norstella
10.30 am The Biopharma Investment Landscape in 2025

This industry overview details the lay of the land for biopharma companies seeking financing, alliances, and exits. Understanding the global deal trends helps to inform and contextualize individual business development strategies. While capital remains relatively scarce, the outlook has improved heading into year-end. Rising public valuations are enabling follow-on raises while venture capital is available to companies pursuing the latest biotech trends. And with large pharma intensifying its focus on external innovation, the prospects for partnerships, licensing deals, and M&A are as strong as ever.

 		Daniel Chancellor - VP, Thought Leadership, Norstella
10.50 am

From Pitch to Partnership: What Makes a Biotech Investment Ready?

This session will bring together both sides of the funding coin to discuss recent wins, common pitfalls and best practices in funding, looking at current hotspots between small biotech and large pharma and practical tips on how to prepare for, attract and close investment deals. The high-calibre panellists, who will give real-world insight into the best ways to secure the best partnerships, are Sophie Kornowski, who has just led the sale of Boston Pharmaceutical's MASH candidate efimosfermin to GSK for $1.2bn upfront, Maina Bhaman, a partner in the Sofinnova Capital Strategy with a long track record as a successful healthcare investor and Renos Savva, head of innovation and venture development at Discovery Park in Sandwich, a thriving hub that is helping businesses to start, scale and succeed.

Moderator: Kevin Grogan - Managing Editor, Scrip

Panellists:

  • Sophie Kornowski - CEO, Sophiekor Insights, former CEO of Boston Pharmaceutical

  • Maina Bhaman - Partner, Sofinnova Partners

  • Renos Savva - Head of Innovation and Venture Development, Discovery Park
11.35 am

Crafting Your Story: How to Build Data-Driven Narratives That Win

In an increasingly crowded and competitive landscape, how you tell your story matters, as well as the data behind it. In our talk, we’ll explore how to transform forecasting data and market intelligence into a compelling narrative that resonates with your internal and external stakeholders.

Using a combination of proprietary data and gold-standard forecasting methodology, we’ll walk through how to frame your value in the market with clarity and confidence.

You’ll learn how to:

View your opportunity through multiple analytical lenses
Validate your positioning with third-party insights, and
Craft a narrative that is cohesive, strategic and data-driven

 		Vincent Spurr - Director, GTM (Go-to-Market) Solution Consulting, Norstella
11.55 Closing Remarks Lucie Ellis-Taitt - Executive Editor, In Vivo (Norstella affiliate) and Daniel Chancellor - VP, Thought Leadership, Norstella
12:10pm Networking Lunch
1.30pm Close
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Our Speakers

Sophie-k

Sophie Kornowski

CEO, Sophiekor Insights

Sophie Kornowski, PharmD, MBA, is a seasoned executive with 30+ years in global pharmaceuticals, biotech, healthcare, and investment has established a consulting company to support her peers. Most recently, as CEO of Boston Pharmaceuticals, she reshaped its strategy and led the deal with GSK around efimosfermin for MASH. Previously, as Partner at Gurnet Point Capital, she drove early-stage investments, licensing deals, and served on multiple boards. At Roche, she was Executive Vice-President, Head of Roche Partnering, and a member of the Corporate Executive Committee. In this position, she led major acquisitions including Foundation Medicine, Flatiron Health, and InterMune, as well as 70+ global deals annually. Earlier, Sophie was General Manager of Roche France and held senior roles at Merck & Co., Sanofi, and Abbott. Sophie holds a PharmD from Paris Descartes University and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Maina Bhaman

Partner, Sofinnova Partners

Maina is a Partner in the Sofinnova Capital Strategy. She joined in 2018, bringing an extensive network and a long track record as a successful healthcare investor.

Prior to joining Sofinnova, she was director of healthcare investment at Touchstone Innovations (formerly Imperial Innovations) in London, where she led and co-led investments in the UK.

Maina’s interest in biotechnology goes back to her childhood. “I’ve wanted to be in biotech since I was 16 years old,” she said. “It was the early days, when Amgen and Genentech were first in the news, and it just sounded cool to me.”

Before turning to investing, Maina worked in the R&D teams of several UK and US biotech companies, including Celltech, Oxford GlycoSciences, Chimeric Therapies and GeneMedicine.

Her current investments include Purespring Therapetics, Sitryx Therapeutics, Mironid Ltd, Myricx Bio, Mediar Therapeutics, Enyo Pharma, and Nuage Therapeutics.

Maina holds a Bachelor’s in Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Imperial Business School.

Renos Savva

Head of Innovation and Venture Development, Discovery Park

Renos handles stakeholder relations, strategy and investments for Discovery Park Ventures, as an extension of his role in the Business Development office at Discovery Park.

With a background as an academic inventor and serial entrepreneur, starting with his inception of Domainex, Renos has leveraged his insights and connections as a mentor to founders and adviser to startups, from both research institutes and venture builders/studios.

Through his network enabling programmes, he supports entrepreneurial activity: Delivering both the Discovery Spark programme and, with an onsite Barclays Eagle Lab, an incubator for the site’s collaborative-laboratory-based founders. These initiatives emphasise ecosystem insight and connections to foster commercial sustainability, including preparing ventures for investor readiness.

Vincent Spurr

Director, GTM (Go to Market) Solution Consulting, Norstella

Vincent Spurr has been part of Norstella solution consulting team since 2015 and currently leads it as Director, GTM Solution Consulting.

He supports pharma and biotech clients in making strategic, high stakes decisions—spanning licensing analyses, rNPV valuation, deal benchmarking, and commercial analytics. With expertise across commercial, clinical, regulatory, and market access domains, he designs and delivers tailored technology enabled analytics and custom research.

Vincent holds a BSc in Business and Management from Brunel University and brings over 10 years of domain and consulting experience.

Daniel Chancellor

VP, Thought Leadership, Norstella

Daniel Chancellor brings over 15 years of experience in the biopharma industry, spanning drug discovery, market analysis, competitive intelligence, and strategic consulting.

He leads Norstella’s thought leadership initiatives, producing unique research that guides clients through evolving industry trends.

Daniel is a sought-after speaker at conferences globally, and his expert commentary is featured in leading business and industry publications. Before Norstella, he worked as a medicinal chemist at Summit Therapeutics and holds a First Class Honours degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Bath.

Kevin Grogan

Managing Editor, Scrip (Norstella affiliate)

Kevin Grogan has covered the pharmaceutical industry for over 25 years, holding positions from online editor at PharmaTimes to Managing Editor of Scrip.

He has interviewed top pharma leaders, and as a frequent conference moderator, appears regularly on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and radio.

Fluent in Spanish, Kevin started his journalism career in music and regional news covering football before shifting focus to pharma. He reports across all therapeutic areas and industry segments.

Lucie Ellis-Taitt

Executive Editor, In Vivo (Norstella affiliate)

Prior to leading In Vivo, Lucie was a senior editor at Scrip and Pink Sheet.

She is responsible for the production of In Vivo online as well as the annual Outlook publication.

Covering the biopharma space since 2012, Lucie writes feature articles on the topics of leadership, R&D, innovation and more.

She also regularly attends industry events and moderates panel discussions on topics such as investment trends, women’s health and R&D hot topics.

Register Now
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