Company Spotlight: EQT Life Sciences

As Vice President at EQT Life Sciences, can you share an overview of your role and how it contributes to advancing innovation and growth in the life sciences sector?

As Vice President at EQT Life Sciences, I am actively involved in the end-to-end process, from first conversations to post-investment. I source/track opportunities and lead the scientific diligence, shape the thesis, and work closely on negotiations. After closing, I stay close as a board observer, supporting teams while they sharpen milestone roadmaps, engage early with regulators, recruit key talent, and plan the next round. Our team helps co-design protocols, pressure-test endpoints and biomarkers, and match geographies, investigators, and CROs to the indication. Our aim is to provide access to our academic/KOL network, support the company in designing and running the right experiments at the right time, answering the gating questions that move the program to the clinic, so teams can advance (or pivot) on evidence and patients benefit sooner. I also help grow the platform through LP relationships, and representing EQT at conferences, so our pipeline, syndicates, and know-how compound over time.

EQT Life Sciences is known for its focus on transformative healthcare solutions, what are some of the key challenges or unmet needs in the industry that your investments aim to address?

In neurodegeneration, Alzheimer’s has advanced the furthest, on treatment (approval of Leqembi and Kisunla) and biomarkers (amyloid/tau PET and blood tests), enabling earlier diagnosis, trial enrichment, and pharmacodynamic readouts. Yet current Alzheimer’s drugs only slow cognitive decline; patients still need deeper, earlier, more durable benefit with better tolerability and simpler delivery. Another big unmet need is symptom control (agitation, anxiety, psychosis, sleep), which remains poorly addressed and a major caregiver burden. Through our investments, we’re tackling pathologies at the core of disease with the ambition to prevent further progression. For example, VectorY is developing vectorized antibodies to target intracellular TDP-43 (inaccessible to conventional antibodies), while Atalanta aims to lower HTT in Huntington’s using delivery that reaches deep brain regions that others have struggled to access; we also have an undisclosed investment focused on agitation in Alzheimer’s.

What criteria or factors do you prioritise when evaluating companies or technologies for investment, and how do these align with EQT Life Sciences’ mission to drive impactful change in healthcare?

At EQT Life Sciences, we help turn rigorous, innovative science into real-world healthcare solutions. Our recipe for success is to set value-inflecting milestones early, work hands-on with teams across science, clinical development, strategy, and provide board-level guidance so companies hit those milestones, unlock the next stage (financing, partnerships, pivotal trials), and preserve exit optionality. Within this approach, our Dementia strategy adds a specialist, highly thematic lens to neurodegeneration, where we maintain deep networks and see sustained pharma interest. Because the field is complex and scarred by past failures, our approach reflects years of trial and error, and the reality that these indications involve long, risky trials. We are guided by three principles: the right target (human-anchored, druggable, ideally genetics-supported); the right drug and modality (aligned to disease biology with brain-penetrant exposure and a clear dose-response); and the right biomarkers and trial design (mat

The life sciences industry is evolving rapidly, what emerging trends or breakthroughs are you most excited about, and how do you see EQT Life Sciences playing a role in shaping the future of healthcare innovation?

We’re excited about brain shuttles, with companies moving from brain-targeted to cell-specific shuttles. Pairing the right payload with the right shuttle and improving intracellular access (e.g., next-gen siRNA, engineered antibodies) should further increase CNS exposure and effect sizes, and reduce reliance on IT/ICM routes. I began tracking the obesity/cardio-metabolism wave through its neurology link: growing evidence that incretin biology can modulate neuroinflammation and insulin signaling, prompting exploratory studies in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. From that starting point, we follow the broader obesity race as it moves beyond injectable GLP-1s to oral incretins, multi-agonists, and smart combinations as manufacturing scales. With pipelines now crowded, true differentiation hinges on efficacy, tolerability, convenience, durability, and the quality of weight loss, maximizing fat reduction while preserving lean mass. Having worked at 4BIO Capital, I continue to track the gene therapy space: despite a tough year (patient deaths, companies exiting the space, sour investor sentiment), the field is maturing, with stronger data and growing focus on higher-prevalence indications.

Looking ahead, what is your vision for the future of the life sciences sector, and how do you hope EQT Life Sciences will contribute to solving global healthcare challenges and improving patient outcomes?

Looking ahead, my vision is to move neurodegenerative medicine from managing decline to modifying, and ultimately preventing, the course of disease. In parallel, we must treat residual behavioral symptoms (agitation, anxiety…) that affect patients and caregivers. Delivering on this vision requires identifying pre-symptomatic patients, defining biological subtypes, testing rational combinations, and measuring drug effects with reliable, patient-relevant outcomes. Basically, bringing the precision-oncology playbook to neurology. At EQT Life Sciences, I want us to be the catalyst for this shift, backing human-anchored biology, advancing brain delivery and cell-specific shuttles, and insisting on biomarker-driven development and digital phenotyping to prove mechanism early. We will convene the right collaborators across academia, biotech, and pharma so decisive questions get answered faster and therapies reach patients sooner.

Find out more at: www.eqtgroup.com