In a recent webinar hosted by MedCity News and sponsored by business banking provider* Mercury(Opens in a new window), venture capitalists shared their perspectives on health tech, medtech and biopharma sector trends that have attracted their interest and funding. They also offered advice to startups looking for alternative sources of funding beyond government grants.
Artificial intelligence and the impact of automation on time-consuming tasks, particularly to identify targets for drug development, were another important part of the discussion.
Gurdane Bhutani is managing partner of MBX Capital, an early stage venture fund focused exclusively on healthcare and biotech companies that pursue the root causes of why people get sick. Bhutani noted that the firm invests across three verticals: upstream drivers of human health outcomes; health tech businesses that leverage AI to increase the quality of care; and biotech research tools, diagnostics and therapeutics. Bhutani’s training focused on epidemiology and toxicology.
Morgan Cheatham is a partner and head of healthcare and life sciences with Breyer Capital, a venture firm founded by Jim Breyer, one of the first investors in Facebook. It’s focused on investing in early stage startups at the intersection of healthcare, life sciences, and technology. Two of its key organizing principles for investment are AI and precision medicine. Cheatham is also trained as a physician in genetics.
Ben Kromnick built big data and machine learning platforms with Fortune 100 healthcare and insurance businesses before becoming a founder, investor, and operator of multiple clinical research informatics and EHR companies. He worked with some of the largest clinical datasets, health systems, and pharma companies. Using that experience, he is building the healthcare and life sciences business at Mercury.
In the webinar, the panelists highlighted their firms’ healthcare startup investment and collaboration strategies. Although AI was a dominant theme of the discussion, panelists focused on the direct impact of its specialized applications in the field and their impact on equity valuations and corporate development strategies.
“If you’re a company that’s focused on the autoimmune space and you’re developing a modulating agent, you ought to be concerned with immunogenicity as a key risk to your program,” Cheatham noted. “Instead of focusing on AI as this big platform entity across multiple indication areas, that company may instead develop highly specialized models that are specifically targeting immunogenicity reduction for their program because that is where they can increase the probability of success.”
Cheatham also pointed out the importance of in vivo validation data that drives much of the external business development efforts that its companies embark on with biopharma businesses. This in vivo data drives the next financing milestones for startups.
Some of the other discussion points in the webinar included:
- Grant funding secrets
- Capital valuation
- Lean startup tips for efficient growth
- Using AI to reduce risk
- The role of family offices
To access a recording of the webinar, fill out the form here.
*Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC.
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