Lisbon is calling: the BIO-Europe Startup Spotlight returns in March 2026

Thousands of industry professionals gathered in Vienna in November for three days of meetings at the continent’s largest biopharma partnering conference, BIO-Europe. For top pharma companies it was a chance to connect with innovative firms, continue collaborations, and get deals done. Investors heard pitches and wrote term sheets, and out-licensing biotechs sought partners to help drive their development into the new year and beyond. And for eight startup biotechs, BIO-Europe was also a chance to deliver a six-minute pitch that might change the trajectory of their company. 

The Startup Spotlight is BIO-Europe’s high-profile pitch competition specifically designed for emerging and early-stage biotechs. This year, German startup Fusix Biotech, led by CEO Jennifer Altomonte, took home the trophy ahead of seven other finalists, confirming the persuasiveness of their pitch and the value in their immune-oncology technology.

With the next edition of the Startup Spotlight now accepting applications ahead of BIO-Europe Spring in March 2026, its worth taking a closer look at Europe’s premier biopharma pitch competition.

What is the BIO-Europe Startup Spotlight?

The Startup Spotlight is a twice-annual competition for early-stage companies developing new solutions, technologies, or platforms, and that have been created in the past three years, employ fewer than 25 people, and that have raised less than $10 million. With a low entry fee of just €195, the competition is accessible to spinouts and startups seeking to elevate their company at Europe’s most important annual partnering event.

While dozens of companies apply each year, only eight are selected to present their pitch live. These finalists face off in front of a jury of industry experts and an audience of several hundred decision makers from top pharma, venture capital funds, and family offices. With just six minutes to pitch followed by a quick-fire Q&A, the finalists have just one shot to put their name up in lights.

Performing well at the Startup Spotlight can see biotechs rocket forward in their development and fundraising, with several previous finalists raising eight- and nine-figure rounds or being quickly acquired by pharma firms eager to fill their development pipelines.

Fusix Biotech: Startup Spotlight champion 2025

Fusix Biotech CEO Jennifer Altomonte came to Vienna not with the aim of winning but just hoping to lift the visibility of her Munich-based startup. With a pitch that she knew well from presentations to potential investors and partners, Altomonte felt good going into the Startup Spotlight.

“I wasn’t nervous, probably that was helpful,” Altomonte told the Beyond Biotech podcast, explaining that she has been pitching a lot in recent years.

Altomonte used her time to explain how the academic spinout from the Technical University of Munich had developed its trademarked InFUSE platform. The platform uses chimeric fusogenic oncolytic viruses built from veterinary virus backbones. With no pre-existing immunity to these veterinary viruses, delivery is safe, rapid, and effective for treating solid tumors.

Fusix Biotech emphasizes three pillars to their approach to immuno-oncology: safety, efficacy, and delivery.

“I think the beauty of our platform is that it does all three of these things quite efficiently,” said Altomonte, continuing, “We’ve already demonstrated that the vector can only replicate in tumor cells. We don’t see any replication or cytotoxicity in healthy cells. We’ve done biodistribution studies and a dose escalation study. We’ve not reached a toxic dose.

“Of course, this will need to be tested in humans but as far as we can test it pre-clinically, it does look quite safe and then the effect efficacy is also quite good. And we can further improve that through expression of different transgenes and combinations with other therapies and then delivery,” she said. “We also feel that we’ve achieved [success] with our IV delivery, although we’re also always interested in novel formulations or other delivery routes. Depending on the tumor indication, we may explore more local delivery of the virus.”

Fusix Biotech is preclinical but is expecting to scale-up manufacturing in 2026 before beginning first-in-human trials in 2027. As the company is currently fundraising, the opportunity to pitch at BIO-Europe in Vienna was one that could not be passed over.

Live on stage at the BIO-Europe Startup Spotlight

Fusix was the first cab off the rank in the Startup Spotlight finals. For Altomonte, this was less a point of stress and more a relief. “I was fresh and could get it over with and then I could just sit back and enjoy the other pitches,” she said.

With just six minutes to convince the judges, Altomonte began her pitch with a hook: an image of a Time magazine cover proclaiming that it is now possible to cure cancer. Despite the optimism represented by that cover more than a decade ago, the fight to cure or even make cancer chronic continues, she said. But in Fusix and their InFUSE platform, she continued, the opportunity to move closer to a cancer cure now exists.

After offering the audience a quick-fire review of Fusix’s science and their business model, Altomonte took questions from the judges. One judge wanted to see more data, something that Altomonte admitted was hard to squeeze into a short presentation, while another had questions about the company’s soluble payload. “I quite liked the questions,” Altomonte confessed. “They allowed me to expand a little bit more on what I would have liked to say had I had more time.”

After the other pitches concluded and after a short intermission for the judges to confer, the winner was announced: Fusix Biotech was the BIO-Europe Startup Spotlight champion for 2025.

In the spotlight, literally

Fusix Biotech’s win in Vienna put the company in the spotlight immediately. In the hours and days after the victory Altomonte recalls a wave of interest in her biotech. “I’ve gotten a lot of connection requests, a lot of emails,” she said, adding that expanding her network and winning visibility for the startup is always valuable. “I like to keep on people’s feeds and keep them seeing our name….it’s never too early to get out there,” she added, explaining that often new connections begin with a note that the company’s momentum has been noticed on social networks like LinkedIn.

With the Startup Spotlight complete, Altomonte now shifts her focus to fundraising. Fusix is seeking investment to help scale manufacturing and complete IND toxicology studies. “That’s my first priority,” she said, “but of course, business development is going to be crucial in going forward, especially for bringing our assets to the market because this is not something that we will likely be able to do alone as a small biotech.”

For other startups, though, the focus shifts from Vienna to Lisbon, to BIO-Europe Spring, and the next Startup Spotlight competition. With applications now open and the contest sure to be fierce, the industry is looking forward to the next chance to throw the spotlight on the most innovative early-stage companies in Europe.

If you missed our special podcast on Fusix Biotech, Startup Spotlight Champion 2025, you can listen to it just below: