On September 28 the Investment Day Nijmegen was held - this was the presentation delivered by Michel Briejer, managing partner at Thuja Capital.

1. Investor view on entrepreneurship in healthcare
Investment Day Nijmegen - 28 September 2021
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2. Thuja in a nutshell
• Venture capital for starting & early stage companies
• Focus
– Novel therapeutics and medical devices
– Companies based in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany
• More than EUR 125M under management, three funds
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3. Thuja in a nutshell (2)
• Objectives:
→ Financial return
→ Impact (healthcare and innovation ecosystem)
• Experienced and knowledgeable team, network among industry and academia
• Established relationships with:
– Universities/UMCs: RadboudUMC, Utrecht, Maastricht, Leuven
– ROMs: OostNL, BOM, LIOF, NOSHAQ, Sambrinvest
– Institutes: Sanquin
• Long-standing collaboration with RadboudUMC Valorisation department
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4. Key features of ventures developing novel therapeutics and
medical devices
• Very high risk (technical, clinical, financial, commercial)
• Long (years), complex and knowledge intensive development
• Very costly (many millions of Euro's)
• Highly regulated
• Global yet highly diversified playing field
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5. 5
Analysis "Advisory council for science, technology and innovation" (AWTI)
AWTI Report "A better start: The key to growth of
knowledge-intensive start-ups." October 2020

6. Clear guidance with respect to the role of knowledge institutions
• Carefully consider whether a start-up is the
appropriate route to valorization
• Promote chance to growth by providing full support
• Maximize impact
• Limit the number of themes for profiling the
institution
• Thuja works closely with RadboudUMC Valorisation
to review projects at a very early stage, and
provide feedback and advice on potential
valorization route
• In case a start-up route is chosen and there is a fit
with the interests of Thuja, Thuja can help to set-
up the start-up and provide initial resources
• As such, Thuja aims to support and promote the
innovation ecosystem and create impact
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Recommendations Perspective Thuja

7. Look beyond the region for growth
• Develop an (inter)national start-up ecosystem with
optimal conditions in support of growth
• Ensure a good connection with regional ecosystems
from which start-ups arise
• Prevent competition among ecosystems/regions
within the Netherlands
• Our business is a global business so we have a
global focus
• While we invest locally (NL/B/GER) we want our
companies to have a global focus as of the start
• We promote a mindset to look for those resources
that have the best fit to the needs of a company,
without hindrance of regional constraints
• We promote companies to hire diverse teams
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Recommendations Perspective Thuja

8. Strengthen the mix of skills in teams in start-ups
• Promote a proper equilibrium between knowledge
and entrepreneurship
• Propagate commercial and business administration
knowhow
• Development of therapeutics and devices requires
many different skills and types of know-how,
including and exceeding commercial and business
administration knowhow
• We leverage our experience and dynamically
network to support start-ups to get the appropriate
knowledge and experience in place
• We promote companies to hire diverse teams
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Recommendations Perspective Thuja

9. Help start-ups to set and maintain a high level of ambition
• Establish a solid basis as a stepping stone for
successful growth
• Nurture an ecosystem that stimulates start-ups to
maintain a high ambition
• Ambition is a key selection criterion for Thuja to
invest
• We like our companies to settle in a location that is
rich in relevant resources, including lab space,
office space, vicinity to universities and knowledge
institutions etc. – this will help them to find and
attract the right people
• Enable many start-ups and scale-ups in the same
ecosystem, success stories are contagious
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Recommendations Perspective Thuja

10. Ensure that agreements with knowledge institution enables growth
• Clear agreements on intellectual property (IP) that
do not hinder growth perspectives
• Use of agreement templates regarding IP in which
stakeholder interests are in fair balance
• Avoid clauses that are a barrier to growth
• As a knowledge institute, do not hold shares with
voting rights in a start-up
• This is a field of tension, due to lack of experience,
lack of suitable reference deal values and terms,
political agenda's, desire to start earning money
(early milestone payments), lack of full mandate
for TT etc.
• We look into the agreements for aspects that can
develop into an issue during an acquisition, and
obviously also unreasonable commercial terms
• Voting shares are as such not an issue if the voting
rights are not controlling
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Recommendations Perspective Thuja

11. What to improve
Empower and mandate Establish proper empowerment and a clear mandate for
tech transfer offices
Speed Shorten the timeline from decision to actual incorporation
of a venture, create a higher sense of urgency
Trust Improve partnership models between VCs and academia to
jointly build tomorrow's leading ventures
Learn and understand Nurture an atmosphere in which parties can optimally
learn and appreciate each other's needs
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12. Michel Briejer PhD | mb@thujacapital.com | +31 6 2246 2927 | thujacapital.com
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