While European biotechs have historically prided themselves on capital efficiency, this mindset is now seen as a potential flaw in a global race for innovation. The focus is shifting towards bolder financing to generate value-driving data quickly, as efficiency is meaningless if a competitor reaches the market first.

Ten years ago, Portugal's biotech scene had strong research but lacked funding, infrastructure, and an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Today, it offers startups more capital, dedicated biotech parks, and better university tech transfer support, marking a significant evolution into a more viable hub for commercial biotech.

The huge funding gap for European biotech is structural. European institutional investors like pension funds allocate only 0.02% of their balance sheets to venture, compared to 2% in the US. This factor-of-100 difference creates a major hurdle for the ecosystem's ability to retain its champion companies.

Recent billion-dollar successes in the French biotech ecosystem, such as Abivax and Medincel, are largely credited to their management teams. These leaders often have significant experience working in the US and other countries. This global perspective enables them to develop assets for a worldwide market, navigate different regulatory environments, and attract international funding, breaking the mold of previously localized French biotechs.

High-performing European biotech VCs struggle to attract institutional capital not because of poor returns, but because the diligence on small funds is inefficient for large pension funds. They prefer writing larger checks to bigger funds, creating a structural barrier for smaller, specialized VCs to get funded.

The biotech venture model is built on syndication, not competition. As a drug progresses, capital requirements balloon to hundreds of millions for late-stage trials, far exceeding any single VC's capacity. This structural reality forces firms to co-invest and partner throughout a company's lifecycle.

Unlike their US counterparts, European biotechs have less access to large venture funds. This forces a culture of extreme capital efficiency and discipline. This need to be "cleverer, smarter with less people and less money" is a defining feature and potential advantage of the European ecosystem.

Despite discussions of European self-reliance, its capital markets remain inadequate for scaling biotech companies. Over the past 10 years, only three biotechs managed to raise over €100 million in an IPO on a European exchange, compared to 27 European biotechs that achieved this on NASDAQ in the same period.

Europe's strong science is often held back by a lack of serial entrepreneurs, difficulty in raising follow-on funding, and a localized competitive view. Curie.Bio’s model directly counters these issues by providing an experienced drug-making team, a clear funding path, and an embedded global market perspective.