Everything we know, in one place.
Foundational guides on healthcare venture, disease-area investing guides across biotech and medical devices, a working glossary, and the Pre-Seed Readiness Check. Written by Tomasz Felpel, and built to be read, and to be cited.
Foundational guides.
How healthcare venture works: the science, the regulatory path, the spinout process, and how we evaluate an early company.
The 4 Ps of Evaluating a Pre-Seed Healthcare Spinout: Problem, Product, Process, People
How Sonnerie VC assesses university healthcare and life-sciences spinouts at the earliest stage, and how founders can build toward readiness before they raise.
PlaybookThe University Spinout Playbook: How Academic Science Becomes a Fundable Company
A practical guide to the lab-to-company boundary in healthcare and life sciences, from tech transfer offices and IP licensing to the first institutional check.
Field guideDrug Development Phases Explained: A Field Guide for Founders and Generalist Investors
What each phase of drug development actually de-risks, why attrition stays high, and where a pre-seed or seed check fits before the first patient is ever dosed.
Field guideTherapeutics vs. Devices vs. Diagnostics: A Founder and Investor Map of Healthcare Venture
The modalities of healthcare venture, how each creates value, the regulatory path each must walk, and what a fundable pre-seed spinout looks like in each.
Field guideDrug Modalities Explained: Small Molecules, Biologics, ADCs, Bispecifics, Cell and Gene Therapy, RNA, and Peptides
A founder's and investor's field guide to how each major class of drug is built and how it works, and why the choice of modality is a first-order bet on translatability, manufacturability, and competitive dynamics, not an implementation detail decided after the science is settled.
KnowledgeWhy Invest in Healthcare and Life Sciences as an Asset Class
The case for healthcare and life sciences as a durable, demographically underwritten asset class, and why the earliest stage, at the university bench, is where the signal is loudest.
Why we invest, by disease area.
The science, the modalities, and the investment case across the therapeutic areas that define biotech and medical device venture.
Investing in Oncology: Why Cancer Therapeutics and Diagnostics Remain the Largest Frontier in Life-Sciences Venture
A pre-seed investor's guide to the science, the risk, and the signal in cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, from targeted therapy and immuno-oncology to cell therapy, antibody-drug conjugates, and liquid biopsy.
NeuroscienceInvesting in Neuroscience and CNS: Why the Hardest Field in Medicine Is Becoming Investable
Neurodegeneration, neurology, and psychiatry have long been where good science fails in the clinic. Genetic targets, fluid and imaging biomarkers, and new modalities are changing that, and the earliest stage is where the revaluation begins.
CardiometabolicInvesting in Cardiometabolic Disease: Why the Largest Disease Category in Medicine Is Still Early
Cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and metabolic liver disease sit at the center of human mortality. The incretin era reopened the field, and the next wave of durable companies is being built in university labs today.
ImmunologyWhy Invest in Immunology and Inflammation
Large chronic markets, pipeline-in-a-product biology, and a modality ladder from biologics to oral small molecules to tolerance, seen through a pre-seed lens.
Rare diseaseInvesting in Rare and Genetic Disease: A Pre-Seed Thesis for Healthcare Venture
Why rare and genetic diseases are among the most fundable frontiers in early-stage life sciences, how the orphan-drug framework de-risks the path, and what Sonnerie looks for in a first-check spinout.
Infectious diseaseInvesting in Infectious Disease: Antivirals, Antibiotics, Vaccines, and the AMR Problem
Infectious disease carries some of the clearest public-health urgency in medicine and some of the most unusual commercial economics in venture. Here is how Sonnerie thinks about the category, from antimicrobial resistance to vaccine platforms to diagnostics, and what a fundable pre-seed spinout looks like.
RespiratoryInvesting in Respiratory Disease: Asthma, COPD, Cystic Fibrosis, and Pulmonary Fibrosis
Why chronic lung disease is entering a precision-medicine era, and what that means for pre-seed investors backing university spinouts.
Nephrology & transplantInvesting in Nephrology, Dialysis, and Organ Transplantation
Kidney disease is a slow, predictable pipeline from chronic decline to organ failure, yet the infrastructure built to treat it, dialysis and transplantation, has barely changed in decades. That gap is the opportunity.
OphthalmologyInvesting in Ophthalmology: Why Vision Is a Durable Venture Thesis
Cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and myopia together make vision loss one of the largest and most demographically certain disease burdens in medicine, and one of the more tractable ones for a pre-seed investor to underwrite.
OrthopedicsInvesting in Orthopedics and Musculoskeletal Disease: A Pre-Seed Lens
Musculoskeletal disease is one of the most predictable, demographically driven categories in healthcare, and it is solved mostly with devices, not drugs. Here is how we think about it at the pre-seed stage.
Women's healthInvesting in Women's Health and Reproductive Medicine
Roughly half the population, and a share of research and venture funding that has never matched it. Why the gap between disease burden and capital in women's health and reproductive medicine is closing, and what a fundable pre-seed spinout in the category looks like.
HematologyWhy Invest in Hematology: The Case for Blood Disorders Beyond Oncology
Sickle cell disease, hemophilia, and the anemias carry a disease burden that rivals many cancers, and blood's unique accessibility has made hematology the proving ground for gene therapy. Here is how Sonnerie thinks about the category at pre-seed.
DermatologyInvesting in Dermatology: Why Skin Disease Is a Signal-Rich Therapeutic Area for Pre-Seed Biotech
Psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, chronic wounds, and skin cancer carry a disease burden that is easy to see and hard to ignore, and dermatology has repeatedly served as an early proving ground for immune mechanisms that later reshape medicine. Here is how Sonnerie thinks about the category.
Glossary: 62 terms, 5 categories.
Small molecule, biologic, IND, 510(k), SAFE, spinout, and everything between, defined plainly and factually.