Over the last twelve months, a clear and urgent pattern has emerged from hundreds of discussions with leaders across the life sciences investment landscape. In my role at ProGen Search, I have the unique privilege of sitting at the intersection of talent and capital. My conversations with founding partners at top-tier VC funds, seasoned operating partners at multi-billion-dollar PE firms, and the Heads of M&A at global pharmaceutical giants have all pointed to a seismic shift.
The conversations weren’t just about the next scientific breakthrough or the size of the total addressable market. Not at first, anyway.
The conversations were about risk. About resilience. About readiness.
The world has changed, and with it, the very nature of investor due diligence has been reforged. The old playbook, focused on verifying past performance, has been thrown out. In its place is a new crucible – a forward-looking stress test designed to answer one fundamental question: Is this company, and its leadership team, built to survive the pressures of 2025 and beyond?
A VC partner put it bluntly. “We used to underwrite the science,” she said. “Now, we underwrite the execution. The most brilliant molecule in the world is worthless if you can’t make it, get it approved, get it paid for, and do it all without getting sideswiped by a geopolitical event you never saw coming.”
This is where our work becomes critical. At ProGen Search, we specialize in placing the C-level, board, and senior executive talent that investors are betting on. We operate across the entire Life Sciences ecosystem – from Biotech and CROs to CDMOs and enabling platform businesses – and we see firsthand that the quality of the leadership team is the ultimate predictor of success.
After hundreds of these conversations, I started compiling the questions. Not the generic checklist items, but the sharp, insightful questions separating the companies that get funded from those that don’t.
Today, I want to share a few of them with you. This isn’t the full list – that’s a document with over 80 questions that I’ll tell you how to get later – but it’s a glimpse into the new reality of the investor’s crucible.
The New Litmus Test: Geopolitical and Supply Chain Fortitude
Without a doubt, the most significant shift in life sciences due diligence is the intense focus on the supply chain. What was once a sleepy, operational topic is now a C-suite, board-level strategic imperative. The BIOSECURE Act in the US has been a lightning rod, forcing every investor to look not just at their target company, but at their target’s entire ecosystem of partners.
The old question was, “Who are your key suppliers?”
The new question is far more demanding.
The Investor Ask: “Provide your complete geopolitical risk assessment and supply chain resilience plan. This must include a multi-tier supply chain map covering both physical goods (reagents, equipment) and digital services (software, data platforms), tracing critical suppliers back at least two tiers and identifying the ultimate country of origin for each.”
This is just the starting point. The full request, which you’ll see in our guide, goes on to demand quantitative exposure analysis, scenario modeling for tariffs, and—most importantly—proof of executed test runs with backup suppliers.
One PE partner I spoke with, who focuses on CDMO due diligence, was unequivocal. “We now have a political risk analyst on our core diligence team,” he told me. “If a company can’t show us a multi-tier map of their supply chain and their plan for every high-risk dependency, we assume they haven’t done the work. That’s not a risk we can price; it’s a risk we walk away from.”
He explained that it’s not just about physical goods. “Everyone’s worried about reagents from China. We’re worried about their clinical trial data management software. Is their EDC platform hosted on a server that uses equipment from a banned entity? Is their LIMS software developed by an affiliate of a company on the list? Most management teams haven’t even thought to ask their software vendors for a BIOSECURE attestation. We have.”
This is the new bar. Resilience isn’t a talking point; it’s a deliverable.
The Commercial Gauntlet: Moving Beyond the Market Size Slide
Every pitch deck has a slide with a big number – the Total Addressable Market (TAM). Investors are increasingly cynical about these top-down figures. They’ve seen too many clinically successful drugs fail to gain commercial traction because the company misunderstood the realities of market access and competitive dynamics.
The old question was, “How big is the market?”
The new questions are about defensibility and customer friction.
The Investor Ask: “Provide a quantitative analysis of the switching friction for your top 3 customers. This analysis must quantify the estimated cost in dollars, time in months, and the specific validation steps they would face to switch to a competitor.”
This question, a favorite of PE investors, cuts to the heart of a company’s competitive moat. It’s not about how much your customers like you; it’s about how much it would hurt for them to leave you.
The operating partner explained their thinking. “We bought a life science tools company a few years ago. Their sales were flat, but their customer churn was near zero. The management team said it was because of their great service. We dug in. It turned out the real reason was that their instrument software was so deeply integrated into their top customers’ LIMS systems that ripping it out would have cost millions and required a full re-validation of their QC process. That wasn’t a service business; it was an infrastructure business. The switching friction was their most valuable, unstated asset. That’s the kind of moat we look for.”
Another key question in this area probes the longevity of that moat.
The Investor Ask: “Provide an analysis of the durability of your competitive barriers. For each primary moat, categorize it as regulatory, capability, or capacity-based, and provide an evidence-based estimate for its longevity in years.”
This forces a company to move beyond vague claims of being “better” and to think like a long-term strategist. Is your advantage a 7-year orphan drug exclusivity? A 5-year head start based on proprietary manufacturing know-how? A 3-year advantage based on having the only available large-scale manufacturing capacity? Quantifying the durability of your moat is now a prerequisite for a credible investment case.
The Human Factor: Is the Leadership Team an Asset or a Liability?
Ultimately, every investor I spoke with agreed: they are betting on people. This is the core of our thesis at ProGen Search. The right biotech leadership team can navigate any storm; the wrong one will sink the ship. The assessment of leadership has become far more sophisticated.
The old question was, “Tell me about your management team’s background.”
The new question is about their scars.
The Investor Ask: “Provide a case study of a significant crisis or failure this leadership team has navigated together, including the situation, the decision-making process, the outcome, and the lessons integrated into current operations.”
The VC founder was passionate about this point. “I don’t want a team that’s never failed. I want a team that has failed, learned, and become stronger for it. I want to see the board minutes from the meeting where they decided to kill their lead asset based on weak data. I want to see the revised company strategy they presented the next day. A team’s response to a crisis tells me more about their potential than any CV ever could.”
This is a test of cohesion, transparency, and resilience. A team that can’t tell a compelling story about how they’ve overcome adversity is a team that hasn’t been truly tested. In today’s market, investors aren’t willing to fund a team’s education in crisis management. They expect them to have already earned their degree. This is why having an investor-grade leadership team in place before you seek funding is so critical, and it’s the exact challenge ProGen Search helps our clients solve.
The Exam Paper in Your Hands
These are just a handful of the 80+ investor due diligence questions that are now standard in any serious process. The full list covers everything from the specifics of your patent lifecycle management and the statistical analysis plan for your pivotal trial, to your ESG governance and the net revenue retention of your key customers.
It’s an intense and demanding process. But it’s also an opportunity.
The companies that thrive are the ones that are prepared. They don’t wait for the questions to be asked. They build their companies from day one to be “diligence-ready.” They treat operational resilience, commercial defensibility, and leadership cohesion as core strategic assets, just as important as their intellectual property.
For the past twelve months, I’ve been living in this world, gathering these insights, and organizing them into a single, actionable guide. I’ve taken the questions from my notebooks and turned them into a tool that you can use to pressure-test your own business, identify your gaps, and prepare yourself for the investor’s crucible.
I’m calling it The Investor Diligence Question Bank – 2025.
It’s not just a list. It’s a roadmap. Each question is framed with the investor’s perspective—why they’re asking it, and what a best-in-class answer looks like. It’s segmented by business type and functional area, so you can focus on what matters most to you.
It’s like having the exam paper before the test.
I’m making this guide available for free. To get your copy, simply comment “Diligence” on my LinkedIn post, and I’ll send it to you directly.
You can see the LinkedIn post here.
The market is challenging, but the opportunity for well-prepared, resilient companies has never been greater. Let’s get you ready.
Is Your Leadership Team “Diligence-Ready”?
Navigating the investor’s crucible is the ultimate test of a leadership team. The questions in this guide reveal a clear truth: investors are scrutinizing your executive bench with the same rigor they apply to your clinical data and your balance sheet.
If preparing for your next fundraise or M&A process has highlighted a critical gap in your C-suite or senior leadership team, let’s have a confidential discussion. At ProGen Search, we build the investor-grade leadership teams that get deals done.
