Antoine Papiernik

Antoine Papiernik is Chairman and Managing Partner at Sofinnova Partners, which he joined in 1997.

“Life Sciences investing is not just about recognizing good science,” Papiernik says, “it’s about people — learning how to interact with co-investors, limited partners, and entrepreneurs. Listening, discerning, negotiating, and finding common interests.”

When you find the right people to invest in, he adds, “you can bank on them more often than you can predict how the science is going to turn out.” He looks for entrepreneurs with the nimbleness to adapt, “even if that means making a major shift from where one starts out on the journey.”

Antoine actively invests for Sofinnova Capital Strategy, the firm’s flagship investment strategy. He has been an initial investor and active board member in a number of publicly listed companies including: Actelion (ultimately sold to J&J),ProQR, NovusPharma (sold to CTI), Movetis (sold to Shire), and Shockwave Medical (sold to Johnson and Johnson).

Trade sale success stories of private companies include CoreValve (sold to Medtronic), Fovea (sold to Sanofi Aventis), Ethical Oncology Science (EOS, sold to Clovis Oncology) and Recor Medical (sold to Otsuka).

He has also invested in and is a board member of private companies Reflexion Medical, Tissium, Pi-Cardia, SafeHeal, Noema Therapeutics, May Health, Highlife and Inspirna.

Antoine has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He has been selected twice for the Forbes Midas List, in 2011 and 2012, an annual ranking recognizing the world’s top venture capital investors. Antoine is one of the few European and life science investors to have appeared on the prestigious list.