From Publish or Perish to Profit or Perish: the professional journey of a scientist turned into deeptech entrepreneur

by Virginia Greco

Dr Gerardo Marchesini opens a new series of seminars launched by the ICN2 Department of Business and Innovation. He shared his experience with deeptech technology and startup companies in a lecture held on October 4.

The Department of Business and Innovation is organizing a series of talks for the research community at ICN2 with the goals of encouraging scientists to dip their toes in innovation, increase scientists’ business culture, and facilitate networking with the industrial world. The first event of the series has been a seminar titled ‘From Publish or Perish to Profit or Perish’, given by Dr Gerardo Marchesini on October 4 at the ICN2.

Dr Gerardo Marchesini, PhD, MBA, is a biologist specialized in biosensors who transitioned from experimental science to innovation. Early into his post-doctoral stay in Italy, Dr Marchesini saw the opportunity to bring plasmonic-based devices into the diagnostic industry, starting a company that still operates. After running the company for many years, he switched to venture building, helping start-up companies navigate the perilous waters of technology scale-up and commercialization. Currently, he is based in Luxembourg, where he manages a venture builder fund (Nova Fines Partners LLP).

In his talk, Dr Marchesini shared his journey of a scientist who turned into deeptech entrepreneur. He explained the most common mistakes scientists make when trying to innovate, discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly lessons from venture building, and provided some advice on how to face the bottlenecks people encounter in the ecosystem when getting into business after a PhD.

“It has been a great pleasure to have Gerardo here at the ICN2,” comments Dr Pablo Pomposiello, Head of Business and Innovation at the ICN2, “he is involved in some of our projects and we hope to have him onboard as a strategic collaborator,”

Gerardo Marchesini’s biography

Gerardo Marchesini, PhD, MBA is a scientific entrepreneur, inventor and investor with a track record in the creation of science and technology-based companies. Biologist, graduated from the National University of Córdoba, with a PhD in analytical biochemistry from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, he was Marie Curie Industry Fellow and then a postdoc at the Rikilt, Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Ha also was a postdoc in nanosciences at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and MBA at IE Business School in Spain. Co-founder of Plasmore SRL and Biosypher LTD. He worked as a general partner in the investment fund in new technologies Cites I in Latin America, developing a portfolio of 15 deeptech companies, and was Investment Manager in Life Sciences for the European Investment Fund in Luxembourg. He is currently Managing Partner at Nova Fines Partners LLP, a firm focused on venture building and consulting, assisting companies and governmental institutions in their technology scouting processes and implementation of innovation strategies.