Sophia Goeppinger is a founding venture fellow at Vianti Capital, helping build a biotech venture fund and evaluating investments from peri-clinical to Phase II. Beyond her work at Vianti, she focuses on SpaceBio commercialization, including funding, regulation, and the ecosystem needed to turn science into biopharma applications. Goeppinger is also a business angel investor in deep tech, with a focus on space tech.
Previously, she worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, advising pharmaceutical firms and biotechs on commercial strategy, market access, and due diligence. Goeppinger also worked with AIRNA Therapeutics and Roche Pharma.
She holds a Master of Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School and a Master’s in Strategy and International Management from the University of St. Gallen, including studies at Columbia Business School. Goeppinger graduated at the top of her class in both graduate programs and earned her bachelor’s at ESCP Business School as valedictorian. Her research on the US healthcare system won the ICIS Best Overall Paper Award.
As access to low Earth orbit expands, space-based research is opening possibilities in drug discovery, formulation, and manufacturing. In Part 1, the authors look at how microgravity changes biology and chemistry in ways that can’t be reproduced on Earth and where it fits from target discovery to life cycle management.