10 Life sciences companies often need significant amounts of capital to reach scientific and operational milestones, particularly in the clinical growth stages. Venture capital investments can help and continue to trend upward for companies at all stages of development. As Lipa Meir’s Copelovitz points out: “Different VC funds in the life sciences field seek diverse goals (e.g., note the goals of social impact funds). In an attempt to apply a common denominator, however, one can venture that funds are looking to continue challenging and disrupting the ‘traditional’ healthcare industry whilst maintaining dominant trends, such as: preventative and personalized care; the pivotal role of wellness and reduction of treatment costs. In addition, one can expect the world of social impact investing to continue its impressive expansion.” Venture firms bring a wealth of resources to the table outside of just capital needs. Life science and healthcare VCs have likely experienced the challenges and successes of multiple operations in the pre-clinical, clinical and commercial stages. For this reason, they can help founders and managers navigate pitfalls and capitalize on scientific and market opportunities. Investment into biotech and health care boomed during the pandemic as thousands of venture capital firms turned their attention to breakthrough artificial intelligence, cancer-detection technology, mental health treatments, digital doctor visits, diagnostics and more. Some VC investors believe that biotech has matured as a business and that it carries lower risk than it did in the early days. Others think it has suffered from underinvestment in the past. Still others note that investment in the sector is partly driven by the need to diversify VC portfolios. Broadly speaking,across the sector, though the interest remains high.Peregrine Ventures may have set up its healthcare fund but it is far from alone. In July 2022, Israeli healthcare VC fund aMoon raised USD 340 million for a second fund, aMoon Growth II, which will focus on later-stage investments and will support entrepreneurs and scientists developing solutions combining biology with AI, Big Data, and other advanced technologies. This follows on from its 2019 fund – a USD 750 million fund that invested in 22 companies. This past May, Israeli healthcare investment platform Sanara – backed by Teva and Philips Healthcare - set up USD 100 million VC fund to transform healthcare and to take advantage of the opportunities created by the shakeup caused by the Covid pandemic. There may be somewhat more hesitation, especially on valuations at present, but interest and demand in Israel remains high, with signs that there is plenty of life being breathed into the life sciences sector for the foreseeable future. What do VCs want when looking at life sciences?
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