The Crown Jewel Test
By Helena Strigard, CEO and Founder
September 1, 2026
Eszter Kormann Strategic Transaction Lead AOP Health
Why the best sourcing strategy is not seeing more — but knowing what deserves to matter.
Eszter Kormann still remembers her first BIO.
New to business development, she did what many ambitious newcomers do: filled every possible meeting slot. The logic seemed obvious. More meetings meant more opportunities.
By the end of the week, she was walking what felt like 80,000 steps a day. Afterwards, she got sick. The networking was useful, but commercially the outcome was clear: “We scored nothing from it.”
At BIO 2026 in San Diego, the contrast was striking. This time, Kormann — Strategic Transaction Lead at AOP Health — had fewer, better meetings. Every conversation was targeted. Nothing felt like a wasted half-hour. She even had time for coffee.
That shift says something larger about life sciences sourcing. The market no longer rewards simply being in more rooms. It rewards knowing which rooms to walk past.
From volume to precision
Kormann compares the evolution to dating.
“When you start looking, you don’t really know what you want,” she says. “You date everyone under the sun.” After a few real deal processes, the picture sharpens. You understand what fits, what does not, and where your company can genuinely add value.
For AOP Health, a privately held Vienna-based specialty pharma company focused on rare diseases and severe conditions in niche therapeutic areas,, that clarity matters. Globally, AOP Health is small. But Kormann does not see sourcing as a contest of size.
“It’s not about the size of the fish,” she says. “It’s about the type of fish.”
A large pharma company may acquire an asset and place it among many. At AOP Health, the same asset can become central.
“When we take something, it becomes the new crown jewel.”
That is a real competitive edge. Founders and scientists do not want years of work to disappear onto a shelf. They want their asset to matter. For AOP, the promise is not just capital or access. It is attention.
The trade-off is discipline. A smaller company cannot chase everything. Each decision carries more weight.
“We have to close on the right things.”
After the signature
Kormann is also clear that closing the deal is not the end. It is the beginning of another kind of work.
AOP Health’s partnership with VRG to develop a miniprotein for the treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disorders illustrates why sourcing is not just a transaction. It is about enabling a novel therapeutic approach to be translated into a treatment option for patients in need of new therapies.
“You’d think it immediately transitions out of BD,” Kormann says. “It doesn’t.”
Business development knows the asset, the contract and the relationship. The wider organisation has to absorb all of it. That means knowledge transfer, follow-up, resource planning and change management.
Integration can meet resistance. But it can also energise. On one deal, Kormann recalls, R&D teams were so excited that everyone wanted to be in the first meeting.
That is the overlooked part of sourcing: winning the asset is only one test. The next is whether the company can make it real.
Fair beats cheap
In a tougher post-COVID market, distressed companies may create buying opportunities. But Kormann is cautious about pushing too hard on price.
An acquisition can be transactional. A long-term development or licensing partnership is different.
“It’s like a marriage,” she says. “You don’t set it on unequal terms.”
A deal that looks clever at signing can become expensive later if the relationship is damaged. For an asset that is meant to become central, trust is not a soft issue. It is part of the operating model.
Europe, the US and the price of ambition
The Atlantic divide also shapes sourcing. Kormann does not see the biggest EU/US barrier as culture or regulation. Innovation and patents are global, and the development paths are often more similar than people assume.
The real difference is the price tag.
After her luggage was lost in San Diego, Kormann had to buy basics at H&M — and paid far more than she would have in Europe. The anecdote captures the broader point: the US is more expensive, but the potential wins are bigger.
That reflects a deeper divide. The US has more capital and a stronger “go big or go home” mindset. Europe is more disciplined: spend carefully, prove value, avoid unnecessary risk.
Neither model is simply better. But they produce different kinds of innovation. The US may be stronger at breakthrough development because drug development is expensive — and, as Kormann puts it, “money talks.”
AOP Health is recognisably European in its caution. It works the two ends of the portfolio: early science for the long term, and commercial assets that can pay the bills now. The high-risk, capital-heavy middle is less attractive.
“You have to pay the bills first,” Kormann says. “Then you can think of innovation.”
The real BIO lesson
Kormann’s BIO story is not really about conference planning. It is about maturity.
A full calendar can hide a lack of focus. A long target list can disguise an unclear thesis. Mature sourcing is narrower, sharper and more willing to walk away.
For AOP Health, the question is not how many assets it can see. It is whether an asset fits the company well enough to become central.
At BIO 2026, the scarce resource was not meeting slots. It was conviction: knowing what deserves to become a crown jewel — and having the discipline to leave the rest on the table.