Last week, we joined forces with Cambridge Enterprise to welcome Curie.Bio to Cambridge – a venture capital firm that helps founders discover and develop important new medicines.
We began the day by welcoming Curie.Bio leadership at the Milner Therapeutics Institute for a series of 1:1 meetings with Cambridge academics, before moving into the Lecture Theatre for an event entitled “Partnering with Curie.Bio: Turning Ideas into Therapies”.
The session brought together a strong mix of researchers, founders, and innovators from across Cambridge, and Curie.Bio’s Chief of External R&D and Partnering, Christophe Muller, walked the audience through their approach to building therapeutics companies. Co-founder of Function RX Ltd (a Curie.Bio-backed company), Gabriel Balmus, also shared his first-hand perspective on how Curie.Bio can make a difference in developing your company, followed by a Q&A session. It was fantastic to learn more about the company, and to discuss the potential translational applications being carried out by University researchers.
Following this event, Curie.Bio ventured to Deloitte’s Cambridge office for a pre-selected pitching session with Cambridge companies, before joining a Founders Growth Community masterclass at Deloitte’s Life Sciences Catalyst Business Lounge. This provided an opportunity for Christoph Lengauer, CSO and Co-Founder of Curie.Bio, to deep dive into what it takes to get drugs approved for clinic, giving an honest view of the path from discovery to real-world impact – and where things still break down. The gaps between early science and meaningful clinical data came through clearly, along with how the Curie.Bio model is trying to tackle that by making both the science and the economics work better. Christoph emphasised that great science isn’t enough on its own, and that you need the clinical strategy and funding to line up too, stressing the importance of this area for translation of therapies.
Many thanks to Christophe, Christoph and the Curie.Bio team for your valuable insights, to Cambridge Enterprise for co-organising, to Deloitte for hosting the masterclass, and of course to everyone who came along.
