Joe Anderson

Joe is a Partner at Sofinnova Partners, focusing on growth stage life science companies. He joined us in 2020 from Arix Bioscience plc, an LSE-listed venture capital firm where he was co-founder and CEO for 5 years.

Joe has extensive experience in the healthcare and life science industries, including 12 years as partner at Abingworth LLP, where he led venture-style investments in public companies and the formation of the firm’s public equities fund.

As an investor and active board member he has helped companies with financings, IPOs, and M&As, including Algeta (sold to Bayer for $2.9bn), Amarin (listed on the Nasdaq), Autolus (listed on the Nasdaq) and Cytos (merged with Kuros).

Joe is upbeat about the rate of progress in life sciences. "Rapid advances in science over the past decade enabled the development of a vaccine for Covid a year after the first cases emerged. There’s no way you could have done that 10 years ago,” he said. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We are also seeing huge acceleration in our understanding of disease processes in cancer, cardiovascular and neurology. This pace of discovery promises to bring unprecedented benefits to human health in coming years. It is exciting to help companies find that next gear of growth as they bring new medicines to market.”

His early career was at the Wellcome Trust where he became head of the strategy group for 9 years.He then moved into equities research as a pharmaceuticals analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, and then fund management with the global healthcare & biotechnology fund at First State Investments, before moving into venture capital in 2004.

Joe holds a PhD in Biochemistry.