What are life science corporate venture capitals excited about these days? What is the best point of entry to get to them? How early do they invest in, and how long is the investment timeline? The Corporate Venture Capital panelists hooked a full room of entrepreneurs as they offered their intriguing perspectives at LSN's RESI Boston conference in September.

Moderated by Donnie McGrath, VP of Business Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb, panelists include:

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Earlier this week, one of the largest money managers announced the first US impact-backed mutual fund, reflecting a trend of impact investing in the investment community. Impact investing attempts to address the dual bottom line of financial returns and measurable social and/or environmental impact. It has been gaining traction quickly in recent years, especially among a new generation of socially-conscious investors, with an estimated market of $50 billion.

The global health community is also seeing the rise of impact investment. One reason is the growing awareness of the global disease burden, partially thanks to outspoken philanthropists, foundations, and advocates such as the economist Lawrence Summers. In his recent article, Summers was on a mission to bring preventable maternal, child, and infectious diseases to universally low levels by 2035. He argued that "the necessary investments [in global health] would have benefits that exceeded their costs by a factor of 10...

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The allure of gene therapy is very strong, mostly due to its potential to cure, not just treat symptoms, of any disease with a genetic basis. The so-called "magic bullet" treatment-that if perfected, would revolutionize medicine (not to mention several other industries)-has drawn a lot of attention since its inception, and rightfully so. The field has seen many advances as well as setbacks, leaving investors and other industry stakeholders with a lot to ponder and speculate. All things considered, most leaders in the life science industry believe that major breakthroughs are right around the corner, including big pharma who has partnered with several of the biotechs developing these therapies.

The relatively recent gene editing technologies that have surfaced, with the CRISPR/Cas9 technology getting the most attention (more on this later), have once again put the spotlight on gene therapy. Given that gene therapy efforts are still moving forward, we have decided to utilize the Life Science Nation (LSN) company and investor platforms to create a sample of the space and look at some of the current trends...

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