GLP‑1 medicines have moved from metabolic workhorses to front-page news. Originally designed for diabetes, they now sit at the centre of conversations about obesity, cardiovascular risk – and increasingly, brain and cancer biology. Beneath the headlines, two distinct questions are emerging for R&D and portfolio leaders: In neurodegeneration, are GLP‑1s genuinely touching disease mechanisms in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, or are they mainly cleaning up upstream metabolic and

GLP‑1 weight‑loss drugs started as diabetes medicines. Now they’re quietly becoming one of the most powerful tools in obesity treatment — and they’re still evolving. The science is advancing quickly. The harder question is whether access, cost, and policy will keep up.

A Practical lens for Board Members - Will this PI Founder still be CEO by Series B? Most European life sciences funds back companies where the founding CEO is a first‑time scientific leader: a PI out of a top lab, an ex‑pharma director, sometimes a computational founder with limited management experience. Very few investment memos say, “And we expect to replace them before Series B.” Yet that’s exactly what happens in a lot of cases—not always for the wrong reasons, but often

Your first five hires will decide whether your “platform biotech” ever becomes more than a pitch deck. In the first 18 months you’re not building an org chart, you’re building an engine: one person who truly owns the platform, one who runs everything that isn’t science, one who turns data into a scalable system, an early regulatory voice to stop you tripping over yourself later, and a business partner who keeps capital and deals flowing.