BIO-Europe Spring 2026: partnership event brings funding hope to biotechs

BIO-Europe Spring 2026: partnership event brings funding hope to biotechs By Roohi Mariam Peter 21 minutesmins March 27, 2026 21 minutesmins Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email Photo credits: The Climate Reality Project (Unplash) Newsletter Signup - Under Article / In Page"*" indicates required fieldsCompanyThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest biotech news!By clicking this I agree to receive Labiotech's newsletter and understand that my personal data will be processed according to the Privacy Policy.*Company name*Job title*Business email* The week before the clocks change this March, Lisbon hosted BIO-Europe Spring 2026, Europe’s largest springtime biopharma partnering conference. The event brought together more than 3,700 innovators in the life sciences industry all under the same roof to get conversations brewing around potential collaborations and fundraising opportunities in 2026. Table of contentsBeing held in the capital city of Portugal is reflective of the beyond-nascent life science ecosystem in the region. As Joana Branco, director of Innovation and Ecosystem Development at Cantanhede’s Biocant Park, put it, “Traditionally, the research in Portugal has been very, very strong.” However, while research hasn’t translated as much into the industry, technology transfer is slowly looking up. “It has brought us here, and that’s why having the BIO-Europe Spring Convention,” said Branco. “Currently, we are in a good position to showcase our companies, our services, and our research to the world.” As a space for partnerships to forge, most, if not all the biotechs at BIO-Europe Spring 2026 were there seeking licensing deals and funding. While mergers and acquisitions (M&As) were part of the biopharma scene in 2025, albeit not thriving, the funding landscape in general has not been considered favourable over the past few years. Nevertheless, there was an air of optimism. Sander Slootweg, managing partner at venture capital firm Forbion affirmed that this time is unlike the financial crisis of 2008, when funding had evaporated, around 120 companies were forced to cut costs, and seven companies went bankrupt in the span of one year. He explained that now, there is much more money available for biopharma and life sciences in Europe compared two almost two decades ago. Joao Incio, general partner at Lisbon-based venture capital Biovance Capital, added that as the academic research as well as the political environment “is more stable in Europe” than in the U.S. at the moment – as seen in the tariffs and funding cuts imposed by the Trump administration in recent times – European investors should count on this stability to conduct business. Particularly in southern Europe, where the industry is underfunded. Hubs in Germany, France, and the U.K. dominate European funding, while countries like Spain, Italy, and Portugal have historically been neglected when it comes to private investment and venture capital. funding rounds exceeding €100 million ($115.31 million) are scarce. This is despite innovation amping up, with Spain leading clinical trials in Europe, and only second to the U.S. in the world. “Be prepared to pay more so that our companies are not looking to the other side of the pond,” he said. Taking on neurodegeneration: Vesper Bio and Prosperodes With dealmaking on their minds, biotechs at BIO-Europe Spring 2026 seemed hopeful. That’s how Copenhagen-based Vesper Bio’s chief executive officer (CEO) Jacob Falck Hansen felt this week. “Our main objective is to meet with potential pharma partners to create a partnership around one or more of our programs. We are especially focused on finding a partner for our lead program in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). So, we have been talking to companies for a while. This is how it is done. You build a long-standing relationship, and you meet at these events to provide them an update or sometimes even have a concrete proposal to discuss. So that’s the main objective for us here,” said Hansen. “I am also meeting with investors. The investors also come here to meet companies. And given that we are fundraising, it makes a lot of sense also for us to meet investors here.” The Danish company’s phase 2 candidate for FTD, VES001, targets sortilin, a protein implicated in neurodegeneration when the growth factor progranulin interacts with it. What Vesper’s small molecule is designed to do is bind to a small pocket on sortilin to prevent progranulin from binding and getting degraded. “Our ambition by blocking this binding of progranulin to sortilin is to increase the levels of sortilin from the 50% reduced levels up to more normal levels corresponding to what healthy people have,” said Hansen. This was depicted in phase 1b/2a study, where more than 95% mean increase in progranulin levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was observed compared to baseline. To make haste with late-stage studies, which would involve a hundred patients for up to two years, the company needs funds. “A small company like ours, we don’t have that much money in the bank. So, we are out raising funds; we hope to close our fundraising just after the summer in Q3,” said Hansen. Another biotech in the neurology space at BIO-Europe Spring was Prosperodes, but both its R&D and partnering goals were different from that of Vesper’s. To end the need for better biomarkers to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases, Prosperodes has built a technology platform over the past three years. It has created biomarker panels to detect protein aggregates for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and FTD. And now it’s ready to sell its product. “We are now entering the market, approaching early adapters, customers, collaborators. We are super happy about the resonance we get here for this translational aspect, where you have biomarkers that you can use early on,” said Christiane Ritter, chief scientific officer (CFO) of Prosperodes. A range of cancer treatments in development: One-Carbon Therapeutics, T-knife Therapeutics, and iOmx Therapeutics at BIO-Europe Spring 2026Meanwhile, in the oncology space, in attendance was Ana Slipicevic from Swedish biotech One-Carbon Therapeutics. The company’s lead candidate TH9619 targets DNA damage repair pathways for solid tumors. Since cancer cells, unlike normal cells, need to proliferate, they boost their metabolism to sustain this proliferation and make building blocks for DNA synthesis. “They upregulate all these metabolic pathways and the demand for amino acids in order to sustain them, which separates them from normal cells,” said Slipicevic. “Normal cells don’t turn around so much, so, they don’t really need all this. This is a kind of cancer-specific metabolism.” By cutting off the supply to make the nucleotide thymine, the cell gets to a point of no repair, which is what TH9619 tries to induce. “We induce the damage by switching to this wrong nucleotide, and then we also indirectly block repair directly via MTHFD2 in the nucleus. So, we kind of hit them with the two things and merge this,” said Slipicevic. Setting out to find the ideal dosage, having dosed the first patient in the clinic back in September, being first in class is not without its challenges. The number one challenge being “explaining the science.” “People haven’t really targeted this in clinic; everybody wants to see proof of concept. It’s quite a complex metabolic pathway, so it’s a lot of feedback loops and rewiring, so it’s quite complicated and people usually need extra proof to see that this is a safe approach and that it will work. With this type of approach, it takes extra convincing,” said Slipicevic, whose company signed a deal with Tempus last week, in a bid to “uncover deep molecular insights” for developing TH9619. Suggested Articles Top biotech deals in February 2026 The 11 most advanced microbiome players aiming for the gut How biotechs are using AI to rescue failed drugs Promising cure for COPD: Is a breakthrough treatment within reach? JPM 2026: what’s the outlook like this year? Hurdles to creating medicines for solid tumors are echoed by drug developers. Berlin-based T-knife Therapeutics has a T-cell therapy in the works, but not for blood disorders – a more common indication that cell therapies address. The biotech wants to take on solid tumors. “Solid tumors are just harder to treat,” said Elisa Kieback, chief technology officer of T-knife Therapeutics. “But the field has really advanced in understanding which are great targets for solid tumors and which are the barriers that T cells need to overcome in order to function well in solid tumors.” T-knife’s T cells are engineered with T-cell receptors (TCRs) that scan the surface of other cells for foreign antigens present in cancers and then are redirected to the tumor to kill them. Another German biotech in the cancer immunotherapeutics field is iOmx Therapeutics, and it’s got eggs in different baskets; small molecules, antibodies, and T-cell engagers. Its lead candidate IOMX-0675 is a dual-targeting antibody, addressing a key immune-regulatory receptor family expressed on certain cancer cells. These are two homologous family members, and we have designed and developed an antibody that specifically blocks both simultaneously. And the biology tells us that you have the maximum immune activation effect only when you block both targets simultaneously,” said Apollon Papadimitriou, CEO of iOmx. With a clinical trial application (CTA) approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in hand now, iOmx seeks funding to test IOMX-0675 in the clinic. And it’s on the lookout for collaborations over its platform as well. “If you had a company that says, “I’m interested in your platform, we can kick it off with one of your assets as a lead asset in a partnership, and you can generate new drug candidates in this combined partnership,” that would be an interesting deal for us,” said Papadimitriou. Not enough funding in women’s healthcare Meanwhile, in women’s health and gynaecological care, Hungarian pharmaceutical company Gedeon Richter is eyeing innovation and collaborations to address female fertility, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, female contraception, infectious disease, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). It has tapped Swiss biotech FimmCyte to potentially begin first-in-human trials to treat the root cause of endometriosis, a chronic, often painful disease where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus. “Women’s healthcare in general is still something we need to calculate at a very serious level. A lot of big players are moving out from this field. They would prefer to prioritize their capacities to other fields.”However, Gedeon Richter is among the last few big developers standing that hasn’t yet deserted the women’s healthcare space. In a report by the World Economic Forum, only 6% of funding currently exists for nearly 50% of the population. “Women’s healthcare in general is still something we need to calculate at a very serious level. A lot of big players are moving out from this field. They would prefer to prioritize their capacities to other fields,” said Ádám Szabó, senior business development manager of Gedeon Richter. Gene therapies for eye disorders in the making As for R&D in eye disorders, there was a panel discussion dedicated to it. And with the Luxterna nod in 2017, it has set the stage for cell and gene therapies to treat ophthalmology indications. Luxterna is delivered via an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector, a vector that regulators are now all too familiar with, which means that biotechs can design therapies with AAVs without having to validate the delivery. Like for instance, Munich-based Complement Therapeutics’ gene therapy CTx001 for geographic atrophy, an advanced, irreversible form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) that causes progressive and permanent loss of central vision. Just two days ago, the company announced that it had begun dosing patients in a phase 1/2 trial. Another biotech at BIO-Europe Spring that was a part of the discussion was Milan-based AAVantgarde Bio, which scored $141 million in a series B funding round in November 2025 to fund two gene therapies AAVB-039 for Stargardt disease and AAVB-081 for Usher syndrome, both of which are rare diseases, the latter characterized by combined hearing and vision loss as well as balance issues. Rare disease space riddled with regulatory and funding barriers; BOOST Pharma seeks funding for cell therapy Rare diseases were a hot topic too, especially regarding funding that wasn’t. As rare diseases affect about 300 million people worldwide, unmet needs are plenty. With diagnostic delays coupled with underdiagnosis and the lack of access to newborn screening, Hans Schambye, director of Danish company BOOST Pharma, raised his frustrations with the current funding and regulatory environment for the rare disease space at a panel discussion. There is a basic philosophical difference between how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the EMA function,” said Schambye. “Europe needs to realize that you need to pay for innovation, and if you don’t, there won’t be any left.” While there are incentives for orphan drugs, for ultra rare diseases, things look bleak on the investment front, according to Luis Oliveira, executive director at v-ATPase Alliance, a nonprofit organization raising funds for rare disease treatments. Still, patient voices are becoming central to the discussion now, with lived experience and patient advocacy being more intertwined with policy. Schambye’s BOOST Pharma is developing a first-in-class therapy to treat brittle bone disease, a genetic disorder causing fragile bones to break easily. When injected, the cell therapy BT-101 migrates to the bone, where it engrafts and boosts the formation of bone. Preclinically, BT-101 led to higher calcium deposition – key to bone development. “We’re giving them cells that can manufacture normal collagen and stimulate bone growth. So, the cells hone to the bone, and then they start manufacturing normal collagen. What’s also interesting and something we didn’t know when we started the project many years ago is that these cells, when they start producing collagen, they also induce the patient’s own cells to start manufacturing more bone,” said Schambye.That’s what’s called a paracrine effect, when cells, often stem cells, secrete factors that impact neighbouring cells to have a similar effect. “It’s not like a hormone, it’s telling the guy next door, you need to start doing something. We believe that BT-101 gives the patient the ability to make normal collagen and stimulate the patient’s own cells,” he said.So far, the drug has had encouraging results in the clinic. “It’s all early days, but what we see in the early clinical trials is when we go in and treat the patients, they have much fewer bone fractures, 70% fewer fractures. Actually, more than half of them don’t experience any fractures anymore,” said Schambye.Having sought SEK 34 million ($3.6 million) in November, the biotech is keen on securing more to fuel phase 3 trials. Addressing GLP1 side effects: will sarcopenia candidates make it? Moreover, while the buzz around Ozempic doesn’t seem to be dying down, in the cardiometabolic disease space, talks around preserving muscle are gaining traction, as people on the weight loss drugs experience lean muscle wastage. This can lead to sarcopenia, which can progressively lead to the loss of muscle and strength. That’s what Rejuvenate Biomed is hoping to tackle. Its lead candidate, RJx-01, is a combination of two molecules, metformin and galantamine, that work on pathways implicated in muscle quality decline. “We combined products that have been around for quite a while. So that means that we do have safety data at hand,” said Ann Beliën, founder of the Belgian startup. Phase 1 studies had healthy participants between the age of 65 and 75, in whom sarcopenia was induced by putting their leg in a cast for two weeks to curb movement. When the cast came off, they would continue the drug for another four weeks and then be given the drug or the placebo. And then they went on a rehabilitation program. The trial met all primary and secondary endpoints, and exploratory endpoints showed improvements on muscle strength, function, and fatigue resistance. Now, on a mission to seek funding and possibly collaborate to further develop RJx-01, Beliën pointed out that the company also works with genomic data derived from its artificial intelligence (AI) platform. AI talks don’t cease: DenovAI, Syngensys, and Evogene seek collaborations AI was of course a topic of discourse at BIO-Europe Spring 2026. DenovAI invented de novo protein design, which is the ability to design proteins completely from scratch that could then bind to other molecules of interest. “That really is the basis for a whole new way of doing therapeutic biologics discovery,” said Kashif Sadiq, founder of DenovAI. “Everyone will tell you in vivo car T is the hot thing. It does make sense because ex vivo car T is a very promising technology in CARs or in TCRs. But the logistics behind it, the costs associated with taking the patient’s cells, purifying, enriching them, and doing this whole transduction ex vivo and then giving the patient their own cells back, in my opinion, there’s a more cost-effective way to do it, and that’s obviously doing it in vivo.”The technology is indication-agnostic, meaning that it is not tuned to addressing a specific indication, but the current focus is on neurology and lung disease. “We’ve had a really amazing capacity to really develop a platform that has product market fit. And now, this year, we’re moving more into commercial partnerships,” said Sadiq. Another AI-focused startup wanting to make molecules from scratch was Israel-based Evogene. As Olga Nissan, vice president of Business Development at Evogene, put it, “This conference is where science, strategy, and collaboration come together. It’s a chance to meet teams facing real bottlenecks in early discovery and explore how Evogene can work together to solve those bottlenecks.” Nissan believes that generative AI in pharma is moving from an experimental tool to an operational part of early drug discovery. “It is already being used to design and optimize small molecules and to help address one of the biggest challenges in the field: improving the quality of candidates before they enter development.” Meanwhile, Sheffield-based Syngensys is using AI to create synthetic promoters for Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells, which are engineered, artificial DNA sequences designed to control gene expression. At BIO-Europe Spring 2026, Thilo Pohle, DNA engineer at Syngensys, was scouting for CDMOs and pharmas who could use Syngensys’ promoters. Pohle predicts that the cell and gene therapy field will see a lot of in vivo car Ts soon. “Everyone will tell you in vivo car T is the hot thing. It does make sense because ex vivo car T is a very promising technology in CARs or in TCRs. But the logistics behind it, the costs associated with taking the patient’s cells, purifying, enriching them, and doing this whole transduction ex vivo and then giving the patient their own cells back, in my opinion, there’s a more cost-effective way to do it, and that’s obviously doing it in vivo.” Lung disease therapies and pandemic preparedness on the table Besides, in the lung disease therapeutic space, Ethris has proof of concept readouts planned for later this year. Its candidate in question is ETH47, an mRNA-based therapeutic that activates the body’s innate immune defence against viruses that affect the lungs. “We deliver it to the nose, and it encodes for a cytokine called interferon lambda, which is the first line of defence against any virus infection,” said Philipp Schreppel, senior director of Business Development at Planegg-based Ethris. These cells signal neighboring cells to activate hundreds of protective genes, each contributing different antiviral functions, including blocking the spread of the virus and curbing exacerbations in chronic respiratory conditions like asthma. “It’s a very exciting time to discuss with pharmas how they see the asset and for us to think about further development, how can we drive the asset forward, and what’s their view on what they want to see for further clinical development; just to get that external perspective,” said Schreppel. Meanwhile, it also has $13 million under its belt to develop a vaccine for influenza for pandemic preparedness. Also treating lung disease is Planegg-based AATec, which has a recombinant version of alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT), ATL-105, for inhalation to treat chronic lung inflammation disease, which is a non-cystic fibrosis (CF) bronchiectasis, a chronic lung disease characterized by a persistent cough and frequent infections. The first approval for the indication only came last year, a milestone for patients because for the first time the disease became treatable. However, the medical need for new medications with broader treatment effects, improved safety profile remains high, Rüdiger Jankowsky, CEO of AATec, pointed out. “This is exactly where we want to go in order to provide additional treatment options for the patients. We believe that can indeed be a major improvement of the quality of life of these patients,” said Jankowsky, as the team gears towards a proof-of-concept clinical trial. Meanwhile, in microbiome therapeutics, MRM Health in Ghent, wants to take on the challenges that the modality faces. “Can you make a drug out of this superb idea of using the bacteria to treat diseases? Can it be reproducible? Do you really have to get the gastrointestinal (GI) tract completely empty by using antibiotics before you can treat with your new strains? Do you really know what you give to patients?” posed Grégoire Franoux, chief business officer of the Belgian biotech, who added that these industry-wide challenges are being overcome one by one. Where is the microbiome field headed? Now, the first microbiome company with positive data in ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, MRM Health is planning its phase 2b study, having secured €55 million ($63.37 million) in a series B round last year. Meanwhile, innovations to reduce the reliance on animal models, such as the organ-on-a-chip model, were part of the dialogue too. “There’s a lot of interest from clients in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to understand what they can do with these new methods to develop drugs faster and more efficient compared to historically high attrition rates which they see in drug development,” said Reyk Horland, CEO of Berlin-based Tissuse. Horland added that the technology is already in the maturation phase. “If you look at how technology is usually, you start with the technology, then it’s in the hype phase, then you have this decline, and now, it’s already in the maturation phase because even before these whole announcements of the FDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and so on wanting to not rely much on animal research anymore, a lot of pharmaceutical companies already adapted this technology with regards to internal portfolio decision making,” said Horland. “Now, the next step is basically bringing this into regulatory acceptance, so the next level of maturation is here right now.” Will European biopharma look inward for funding? While many startups and developers were there to hunt for partners, many were there to showcase new ideas and R&D at the Startup Spotlight competition. Amid a sea of monoclonal antibody, AI, and central nervous system (CNS) therapeutics developers, New York-based Nionyx Bio took the prize, for its AAV capsid platform for gene therapies that target kidney disease. While spirits were high at the event despite the financial rut, panelists at the investment landscape session urged investors to “take advantage” of comparatively stabler environments in Europe at present. And with the launch of the European Life Sciences Coalition last month, the industry may not have to look across the Atlantic for new investments as much as before. This article is reserved for subscribers Subscribe for free to continue reading.Enter your details to log in or subscribe. Email Company name Job title Continue Readingor Continue with Microsoft Continue with LinkedIn By continuing, I agree to receive Labiotech's newsletter and understand that my personal data will be processed according to the Privacy Policy. Organoids in cancer research: Paving the way for faster drug development across cancer indications This webinar explores how patient-derived organoids (PDOs) are redefining oncology research. Discover how advanced, well-characterized models empower researchers to streamline candidate selection, accelerate orphan drug programs, and deliver transformative therapies to patients faster than ever. Watch now Explore other topics: AntibodiesCancerInfectious diseaseMicrobiomePartnershipsSmall molecules ADVERTISEMENT