Listup, the multi-year research observatory created by Indicon , publishes the results of the Italian ecosystem of startups in the life science sector. The Observatory, produced in collaboration with Growth Capital, Italian Tech Alliance and InnovUp, enjoys the patronage of Angel4Woman, Assolombarda, Club degli Investitori, Cluster lombardo scienze della vita and IAB – Italian Angel for Biotech. The research, referring to the three-year period 2021-2023, shows that the There are a total of 753 new startups active in the life sciences sector, representing 9.5% of the total number of startups born in this period. The areas in which these new startups operate are Digital Health (42%), followed by MedTech (28%), Healthcare Product/Service (21%) and, finally, Biotech/Pharma (9%). Although these segments recorded a decline between 2021 and 2023 (digital health -36% compared to 2021, healthcare product/service -32%, biotech/pharma -21% and medtech -9%), two of these – medtech and biotech/pharma – show signs of recovery in 2023 compared to 2022, with growth of 17% and 21% respectively. Geographically, 28% of startups are located in Lombardy, 13% in Lazio, 12% in Campania (12%), 8% in Emilia-Romagna and 7% in Piedmont. Of those present in Lombardy (equal to 20% of life science startups in Italy), 73% can be traced back to the Metropolitan City of Milan. On the other hand, 12% are attributable to the Metropolitan City of Rome, 6% to that of Naples and 5% to that of Turin. Emilia-Romagna, on the other hand, has a uniform territorial distribution of new startups throughout the region, without one city prevailing over the others. 
Of the 753 life science startups, 150 own or use technologies based on artificial intelligence: of these, 67% belong to the digital health vertical and 21% to medtech. The use of AI by life science startups is a progressively growing trend, with the rate of use growing from 17% in 2021 to 24% in 2023. On the other hand, 105 are those that leverage telemedicine technology, equal to 14% of the total of the three-year period, and are attributable to the digital health sector for almost all (96 startups, equal to 91%). On the other hand, this trend is declining both in the three-year period and, in particular, between 2022 and 2023. The life sciences sector has a significant number of startups that own patents and/or registered software, equal to 19% of the total, a higher percentage than the average of the ecosystem of innovative startups in general, where this value stands at 15%. The macro-category that holds the highest number of patents or registered software is medtech, with 28%. For biotech/pharma, the figure stands at 25%, followed by healthcare product/service with 16% and digital health with 13%. In the universe of life sciences startups, one in 5 companies (20%) has teams composed predominantly (share greater than 50%) of women, compared to a percentage of all innovative startups that stands at 15%. On the other hand, startups with teams composed mainly of under 35s are 19%, a figure slightly lower than what is recorded for the entire Italian startup ecosystem, where the figure rises to 22%. The report was presented at an event attended by Simona Loizzo, of the XII Commission (Social Affairs) of the Chamber of Deputies and President of the Parliamentary Intergroup on Digital Health and Digital Therapeutics, Elena Paola Lanati, CEO and founder of Indicon Società Benefit; Fabio Mondini de Focatiis, founding partner of Growth Capital; Francesco Cerruti, general manager of Italian Tech Alliance and Giorgio Ciron, director of InnovUp and then Alessia Cappello, Councillor for Economic Development and Labour Policies of the Municipality of Milan; Fiorenza Lipparini, director of the Milano&Partners Association; Valeria Glorioso, director of the Study Center of Confindustria medical devices; Jacopo Murzi, member of the board of Farmindustria; Marica Nobile, director of Federchimica Assobiotec and Luca Ravagnan, board member of the Lombardy Life Sciences Cluster, Lucia Faccio, partner of Sofinnova Partners and Ettore Rizzo, co-founder of EnGenome. “We wanted to create this observatory to contribute to the growth of the life sciences ecosystem. Our research confirms that innovative life science startups also account for 10% of the total, in line with the weight that corporate life sciences have on Italian GDP,” Elena Paola Lanati explains in a note. Our report highlights the importance of digital health, although in the last two years we have seen a resurgence of interest in more traditional areas such as medical devices and biotechnology. Lombardy is Italy’s Silicon Valley, with more than one in four startups. Encouragingly, one in five startups in this industry is female-led. We hope that this work will assist decision-makers in understanding the strategic importance, potential and necessity of investing in life sciences in a competitive way compared to other countries, especially by focusing investments on building a strong and globally competitive ecosystem, considering that our venture capital investments are currently among the lowest in Europe.” “The data that emerge from this observatory are interesting because they confirm the trend that today sees investors mainly focused on those sectors that have a real and concrete impact on improving people’s living conditions, and life science is one of these,” explains Francesco Cerruti. The Italian Life Sciences sector will be one of the growth drivers of the Italian economy in the coming years, also thanks to the growing importance of scientific research, which is why it is essential to continue to support startups in this sector, also trying to attract the interest of international investors to ensure that there is greater availability of resources to support their growth”. “Life science startups, along with deeptech startups, have seen an exponential growth in investments raised in 2023 and everything suggests that the same will happen in 2024 as well. Therefore, valuable initiatives such as the Listup Observatory can shine a spotlight on a leading sector of the entire country’s economy, characterized by very significant investments in research and development and where collaboration between startups and corporations is absolutely fundamental – comments Giorgio Ciron – . In Italy, the life sciences economy is worth about 10.5% of GDP, an excellence at European level, thanks to the production and export of pharmaceutical products and a universal health system that manages to give access to excellent care as well as a very significant amount of data that can be a fundamental lever for the development of new treatments and new technologies. In summary, the “made in Italy” life sciences have always been synonymous with innovation and “made in Italy” innovation also passes through life sciences, so it is a sector in which we must and can make a difference.” “With $186 million raised over 34 rounds, the life sciences sector ranks third in amount and fifth in number of rounds in 2023. While the number of rounds has remained stable over the past 3 years, the amount has increased by 36%, leading to a significant increase in average round sizes. Interestingly, the majority of rounds (about a third) occur in biotech, a vertical that has experienced significant growth in terms of funding, quintupling the amount of investments from 2021 to 2023. This trend, in contrast to the stability of the ecosystem over the last two years, demonstrates significant growth in the sector both in terms of media and funding,” says Fabio Mondini de Focatiis.
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