Behind the scenes with Milla Koistinaho, Partner of Innovestor Life Science Fund

Written by: Tiina Lemmetyinen

Next up in our In Good Company newsletter series, we are introducing you to Dr. Milla Koistinaho, a Partner at Innovestor Life Science Fund. Milla has played multiple roles in the life science ecosystem during her exciting career. Read about her journey from an internationally acclaimed neuroscientist to a biotech founder and finally to a VC investor.

A neuroscientist by heart, with a founder mindset

In the early 90s, biotechnology was still a new field of study at the University of Kuopio (now the University of Eastern Finland). It was also a very exciting time in the field overall. The first transgenic animals had just been created, and around the same time, the AI Virtanen Institute was established in Kuopio to attract the top medicine and biotech experts. It was Milla’s last year in high school, and it was then that she knew this was the direction she wanted to take. 

“I knew from those times, that this is what I want to do, I want to go there and I want to be a researcher and work in such an inspiring environment and with the cool stuff that the modern biotechnology and modern medicine can do”, she shares.

In the third year of her M.Sc., she took a focus on neuroscience. She was fascinated by the opportunities in this particular branch. 

“Brain is a very central organ but there were still so many things to be discovered; human mind, and aging, brain diseases, they are still poorly understood. It really spoke to me as a young person”, she describes.

From Kuopio to Silicon Valley and Indianapolis

After completing her master's, Milla immediately knew she wanted to enroll in a Ph.D. program and have an international research career. She was looking for projects that would allow her to do translational research, and often the best projects for this are the ones where you have a company as a research partner. Milla was lucky enough to get involved in a company collaboration as an academic scientist and study disease mechanisms in various neurodegenerative disorders. 

“In the research group we for example discovered that an old antibiotic molecule that had been for decades used for treating acne, was actually surprisingly good in protecting the neuronal cells in brain disorders, and we then published this in top journals and got a lot of publicity around the world. This led to many collaborations with international pharma companies, so that helped my integration to these translational projects”, she explains.

Milla ended up doing also her Ph.D. in collaboration with a US-based pharma company, which allowed her to take some of her studies at Stanford. The wet lab part she completed in Sunnyvale. Milla then returned to Kuopio to finalize her Ph.D. studies and experiments there.

Having collaborated with a US pharma company on her Ph.D., it was only natural for Milla to continue on that path. When it was time to look at a postdoc position, Milla had many alternatives. Instead of the more traditional route of going into academia, she chose to do her postdoc in a big pharma company, Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis. This only strengthened her passion to translate science. 

“This is where I saw what a big pharma company with unlimited resources can do. I got involved in preclinical work on new monoclonal antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease for example. Alongside I was also able to continue my more exploratory work as post doc, and gain experience as a scientist in the industry. This was a really good learning curve for me.” 

The first Finnish female biotech founder to secure substantial funding

After returning to Finland in the early 2000s and becoming an Adjunct Professor in neurobiology, Milla however made a decision to leave her career as an academic researcher. She had gained a lot of courage in the US but also seen first-hand that the science done in the Nordics was as good, if not better than in the US labs. The only difference was the lack of heritage in commercializing ideas arising from academia, and this is what she wanted to change.

Since then, Milla has been a co-founder of three biotech companies based on their own scientific inventions. She has also been a bit of a pioneer in her field, e.g., as the first female founder of biotech that has been able to attract significant venture capital and Business Finland Young Innovative Company financing for her company.

After her founder years and before becoming an investor, Milla also acted as a COO of a Helsinki University-owned commercialization company, responsible for commercializing discoveries arising from the University of Helsinki. 

Following the passion to develop Life Science VC landscape

While Milla never planned to become an investor, it’s just the way things naturally evolved. 

She had seen the lack of internationally connected specialist investors in her field first-hand. There was an obvious need for an investor who can act as a local anchor for international VC money while having the ability to work side-by-side, hands-on with the founders. So, the timing was perfect when Milla was asked to join the Innovestor Life Science Fund as a founding Partner. It also offered the perfect opportunity to leverage her background, not only as a founder but as a scientist as well. 

“Our fund is very science driven, the scientific foundation and basis needs to be there and that’s one of the first things we look at when we evaluate a new case. I love to be able to leverage my scientific skills to understand that”, she shares.

After the fund makes an investment, Milla also hopes to be able to mentor the founder team. In some cases where the science is close to her own field of expertise, she can even assist with planning experiments and support with finding the right connections in the field.

“Things don’t often go as planned and there will be delays, road blocks, technical failures etc. Having the scientific basis and understanding, I can also help the founders pivot to new areas where the same science might make sense”,she adds.

Love and purpose aligned 

Impressive career aside, Milla is a wife and a mother of three. Her husband is a medical doctor and neuroscientist too. Milla met him during the research phase of her career.

“I am married to a person that shares the views and the reasons for why to wake up in the morning. We both want to make the world a better place to live by really aiding the translation of new medical inventions for better treatments for human diseases, I think that’s the driving force, and I share that with my husband”, she describes.

Family is important to Milla, and she tries to reserve as much time as possible for spending time with her husband and children. Thanks to today’s flexible working environment, this is now easier than before.

Milla is also an advocate for a healthy work-life balance and would not want anyone to compromise on this. 

“Good balance will bring better well-being which translates into productivity. Also, feeling of being valued not only at work, but in personal life is really important.”

Correcting the gender ratio disparity

Not only is there an imbalance in gender ratios looking at startup founders or top-level management in companies, but even when trying to build a career to leadership positions in academia. This imbalance is something Milla’s team is committed to changing.

“Luckily ESG matters have been growing also in the PE world. Now as a VC, we almost always take a board seat in our portfolio companies. Our whole team is committed to helping startups build their ESG or DEI principles, making sure gender equality is taken into account in recruitment processes at top-level management.” Milla explains.

“It also takes leading by example at the grass-root level, and showing that family and business can be combined, you don’t have to be a superhuman to be able to cope with that. It takes time, but we will get there”, she concludes.