Portfolio strategies of life science venture capital firms in the USA and Europe

Motivated by the different development stages of both, the venture capital (VC) as well as the life science industry in the USA and Europe, we investigate portfolio strategies of US-American and European VC firms active in this sector. We analyse portfolios of 88 VCs financing a total of 1050 life science ventures. Our results show that US life science VCs are equally likely to have a focus on early stage ventures and to diversify across investment stages as their European counterparts...