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BUILDING A BUSINESS

Mapping the European startup landscape

Nature Biotechnology volume 37, pages 345–349 (2019)Cite this article

A deep dive into the influence of research output, patenting, venture capital and human capital on startup financing activity in Europe reveals not all countries are equal.

The European life science startup sector differs from its counterpart in the United States in terms of financial and human resources. What is less widely appreciated are the differences in biotech startup formation among the various European nations. Here we set out to map these differences and provide an overview of those European nations that lead and those that lag in terms of biotech startup formation. We chose to focus on what we believe to be four fundamentals underlying research translation: scientific research output, biomedical patent activity, presence of local biomedically focused venture capital (VC) companies, and the abundance of human capital. Our results highlight in particular the importance of a robust scientific base, but also emphasize the need for strength in both financial and human capital.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of startup deals among European countries.
Fig. 2: Biomedical research output differences across Europe.
Fig. 3: Biomedical patent differences across Europe.
Fig. 4: The number of biomedical VC companies across Europe.
Fig. 5: Human capital across Europe for biotech startups.
Fig. 6: Relationship between the number of startup deals and scientific output, patents or VC presence across Europe.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forbion Capital Partners, Naarden, the Netherlands

    Bonnie van Wilgenburg, Sander van Deventer & Rogier W. Rooswinkel

  2. Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

    Kim van Wilgenburg

  3. KP2 LLC, Oakland, CA, USA

    Kathryn Paisner

Authors
  1. Bonnie van Wilgenburg
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  2. Kim van Wilgenburg
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  3. Kathryn Paisner
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  4. Sander van Deventer
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  5. Rogier W. Rooswinkel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rogier W. Rooswinkel.

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Competing interests

B.v.W., S.v.D. and R.W.R. are employed by Forbion Capital Partners, which invests in biotech ventures.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Tables 1 and 2

Supplementary Data

Raw data for the European analysis

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van Wilgenburg, B., van Wilgenburg, K., Paisner, K. et al. Mapping the European startup landscape. Nat Biotechnol 37, 345–349 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0076-4

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