The Long Run with Luke Timmerman Ep196: Otello Stampacchia on Europe's Biotech Crisis
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Mar 17, 2026 
Otello Stampacchia, founder and managing director of Omega Funds and transatlantic biotech investor, argues Europe must fix broken capital markets and regulatory barriers. He discusses fragmented exchanges, slow clinical trials, pension funds’ tiny venture allocations, and efforts to build a coalition to mobilize public and private capital. Conversation also covers talent flows, UK involvement, and urgency driven by geopolitics.
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Europe's Biotech Urgency After Geopolitical Shocks
- Europe has world-class science but a growing urgency among policymakers to fix market failures that hinder biotech scale-up.
- Otello points to Mario Draghi's competitiveness report and geopolitical shocks as catalysts for this sudden awakening.
Huge Pension Gap Drives Risk Aversion In Europe
- European institutional capital allocates far less to venture: ~0.02% of pension assets versus ~2% in the U.S.
- Otello argues this reflects exposure and narrative, not intelligence, and explains the depth gap in biotech funding.
Most European Biotechs List Abroad
- Nearly all European biotech IPOs list outside Europe: 66 of 67 recent listings went non-EU.
- This shows fragmented, illiquid public markets push companies to US/other exchanges for scale and regulatory clarity.