Event Recap: London Life Sciences Week, November 2025
A Week in London: What London Life Sciences Week Revealed About Capital, Conviction and Community
London Life Sciences Week has a way of compressing big conversations into a few intense days. This year felt no different, but it did feel more deliberate. Across panels, private meetings and side conversations, there was a shared acknowledgement that the life sciences ecosystem is in the middle of a reset. Not a retreat, but a rebalancing around discipline, conviction and long term value creation.
For Invest in Equity, the week was particularly meaningful. It marked both a moment of reflection and a step forward in how we engage with the community.
Unlocking Alpha: creating space for the right conversations
On Tuesday evening, we hosted our first limited partner event, Unlocking Alpha: Access, Insights and the Competitive Edge in Investing, at Victoria House. Bringing together 30 LPs during London Life Sciences Week felt intentional. We wanted to create a space that went beyond market commentary and into how capital is actually being allocated, and what it now takes to back the next generation of life science fund managers.
Our panellists Hannah Bernard OBE, Kinga Stanislawska, Dr Ingrid Akay and moderator Sajni Chotai brought perspectives shaped by experience rather than theory. The discussion was candid, thoughtful and at times challenging, particularly around what has changed for GPs raising today compared to even a few years ago.
One of the strongest undercurrents was divergence. While the US is stepping back from DEI under the current administration, there is growing momentum in the UK and Europe to back women and diverse emerging managers as a source of differentiated performance. That divergence is beginning to influence how LPs think about opportunity, risk and where future leaders will emerge.
Another clear takeaway was the increasing importance of government backed capital. Institutions such as the British Business Bank are playing a more active role in shaping the ecosystem, often with a stronger impact orientation than traditional LPs. The announcement of the £400 million Investor Pathways Capital fund on the same day reinforced the sense that the pipeline for first time fund managers is starting to be taken seriously.
Backing the next generation in practice, not just principle
A core part of the Unlocking Alpha conversation was moving beyond intent and into action. For Invest in Equity, that means identifying, supporting and amplifying emerging women fund managers who are building ambitious strategies across life sciences and deeptech.
During the evening, we were proud to spotlight six exceptional women in our Alpha pipeline. Each is leading high conviction strategies and teams, and collectively they reflect the depth of talent coming through the ecosystem today:
Elizabeth Roper, Epidarex Capital
Ayse Baybers, Phenomena Ventures
Tatum Getty and Esther Reynal de Saint Michel, Thena Capital
Aksana Labokha, RegenEra VC
Daniela Begolo, EQT
Mariette Roesink, Curie Capital
What stood out was not just the quality of the science or the opportunity sets, but the clarity of vision and seriousness with which these managers are approaching company building, governance and long term value creation. Creating visibility and access for this group is central to IIE’s mission, and the response from LPs in the room reinforced the importance of continuing to build these pathways.
Listening to investors, not just the market
The following morning, we joined our Platinum Partner, Cavenagh Health, for an investor breakfast and a panel discussion titled Reinventing the VC Wheel: Adapting capital models to a new era of innovation, moderated by Invest in Equity co-founder Nick Ross. The tone was different but complementary. Less about ambition, more about reality.
The panel brought together seasoned investors with deep life science investing experience, including Invest in Equity advisor Shelley Margetson of V-Bio Ventures, and surfaced a number of tensions that are now familiar but still unresolved. It is harder to raise smaller funds, with scale increasingly acting as a signal of credibility. LPs are placing greater emphasis on DPI rather than TVPI as exit timelines stretch and liquidity remains constrained for early stage managers.
Shelley captured a broader concern around capital deployment, noting that while large pools of capital can reduce financial risk, they also threaten the defining strengths of biotech. “The whole raison d’être of biotech companies is that they are lean, efficient and focused machines that can go after the end goal,” she observed, warning that this discipline can be lost when too much capital is deployed too early.
The discussion reinforced a wider point. In today’s market, focus, efficiency and clarity of purpose are no longer optional. They are increasingly the characteristics that differentiate resilient companies and the funds that back them.
Science first, hype last
Earlier in the week, conversations at the SV Health Investors Forum reinforced another important point. AI in drug discovery is no longer a differentiator in itself. It is fast becoming standard practice. What matters is not whether a company uses AI, but whether it uses it well, grounded in strong science, high quality data and real clinical insight.
Discussions with leaders from pharma underlined that progress is already tangible in areas such as molecule design, image analysis and trial optimisation. At the same time, the hardest biological problems remain just that. Hard. The next phase will depend less on tools and more on how data is shared, integrated and interpreted across the ecosystem.
Alongside this, broader conversations touched on brain health, oncology, global pipelines and the growing influence of China. The message was consistent. Innovation is not slowing, but the bar for credibility is rising.
Why this week mattered
What stood out most over the course of the week was not any single insight, but the tone. There was less noise and more substance. Less optimism for optimism’s sake, and more focus on what it will actually take to build durable companies and funds over the next decade.
For Invest in Equity, hosting our first LP event during London Life Sciences Week felt like the right moment to bring our community together. Access, insight and long term thinking are not slogans. They are increasingly essential ingredients in a market that is more selective, more global and more demanding than before.
The conversations we had this week reinforced why creating space for thoughtful capital and emerging talent is not just timely, but necessary. The work continues, but the direction feels clear.