Novo Holdings joins new European Life Sciences Coalition as founding member to support long-term conditions for life sciences innovation in Europe

Copenhagen — To strengthen the long-term conditions for life sciences innovation in Europe, Novo Holdings has joined the European Life Sciences Coalition (ELSC), a newly established initiative working in close association with Invest Europe and a number of prominent European organisations, including Sofinnova Partners, Omega Funds, and Forbion.  

The ELSC has been launched to strengthen Europe’s life sciences and biotechnology venture capital ecosystem by mobilising greater levels of private and public investment across the sector. Created in association with Invest Europe, the coalition brings together leading European life sciences venture capital firms, research institutions, and other stakeholders across the value chain. 

ELSC members collectively manage more than €24 billion in life sciences-specific assets and have invested in, or helped found, over 1,400 life sciences and biotechnology companies. As hands-on investors and operators, coalition members bring practical, market-driven perspectives to policy discussions on capital allocation, company formation, and scale-up dynamics. 

The creation of the ELSC responds to growing concern that, despite strong scientific foundations and entrepreneurial talent, Europe is increasingly unable to scale up and retain its life sciences innovation. Structural barriers, including the underutilisation of private savings, fragmented capital markets, low (and decreasing) numbers of specialised venture capital firms, and slow and uneven regulatory processes, continue to limit access to growth capital and push promising companies to seek financing elsewhere. 

The launch comes at a pivotal moment for Europe, as political leaders focus on strategic autonomy in core industries, capital markets integration, and competitiveness. The life sciences sector supports around 29 million specialised jobs across the EU¹, underpins public health and economic resilience, and plays a central role in the development and manufacture of life-saving medicines. Without decisive action, Europe risks a progressive hollowing-out of its life sciences venture capital ecosystem, with direct consequences for long-term economic growth, innovation, and patient access. 

These challenges are already visible in the data. European life sciences venture capital funds currently account for just 7% of the global market, compared with 63% in the United States and 14% in China. Even more strikingly, 66 out of 67 EU biotechnology companies that went public over the past six years chose to list outside the EU². The message from founders and investors is clear: Europe is not currently equipped to finance and scale its life sciences innovation at home. 

Through the ELSC, members aim to help reverse these trends by advocating for more effective mobilisation of start- and scale-up capital, and a more integrated, efficient investment environment for innovative companies, while pursuing a fundamental shift in how European capital is deployed. Working constructively with policymakers and in association with Invest Europe, the world’s largest association of private capital providers, the ELSC seeks to ensure that Europe not only continues to invent the future of life sciences, but also to finance, scale, and retain it, inter alia through a healthy life sciences venture capital ecosystem. 

Improving conditions for innovation and scale 
Novo Holdings joins the coalition at its launch to help ensure that Europe remains an attractive place to develop, finance and scale life sciences companies. As a long-term investor with significant exposure to the life sciences sector in Europe, Novo Holdings aims to support efforts that improve the overall framework conditions for innovation and growth in the region. 

Naveed Siddiqi, Senior Partner, Venture Investments, Novo Holdings, said: “To succeed and scale, life sciences companies need access to substantial capital and policy frameworks that recognise the realities of developing complex, science-based businesses. Equally important, the sector requires access to experience, long-term engagement, and a deep understanding of how these businesses are built and financed over time. Through the European Life Sciences Coalition, we at Novo Holdings are contributing as a founding member to help mobilise greater sums of capital for investments from both private and public sources into the cutting edge and high growth European Life Sciences sector.” 

Participation in the European Life Sciences Coalition reflects the broader commitment of Novo Holdings to support the advancement of a resilient ecosystem that enables scientific advances to be translated into real-world solutions benefiting people and the planet.  

About ELSC members 
Members of the European Life Sciences Coalition include Cooley (UK) LLP, Covington & Burling LLP, Forbion, HealthCap, Novo Holdings, Omega Funds, Sofinnova Partners, Van Lanschot Kempen and the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB). 

About Invest Europe 
Invest Europe is the association representing Europe’s private equity, venture capital and infrastructure sectors, as well as their investors. Invest Europe has over 650 members, split roughly equally between private equity, venture capital and limited partners – with some 110 associate members representing advisers to the ecosystem. Those members are based in 57 countries, including 42 in Europe, and manage 60% of the European private equity and venture capital industry’s €1.25 trillion of assets under management. Businesses with private capital investment employ 11.2 million people across Europe, 5% of the region’s workforce. 

Read the release from Invest Europe.