Partners HealthCare Raises $171M for Venture Fund
Boston-based hospital system Partners Healthcare has closed $171.1 million to add to its venture funds with plans to invest in early-stage life science companies.
The cash will be spread between two funds: $66.1 million for Partners Innovation Fund II and a $105 million commitment from Partners institutions for the Partners Innovation Fund. The commitments come from The Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Partners Innovation Fund was launched in 2008 by Partners HealthCare with $35 million in the capital. Since its inception, Partners Innovation Fund has invested in 32 companies.
Notable successes include CoStim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a pioneer in next-generation immuno-oncology drugs; Adheron, a company developing potential treatments for a variety of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and fibrotic diseases; and Editas Medicine Inc., a market leader in revolutionary CRISPR gene editing technology.
Partners Innovation Fund will continue to execute the fund’s investment strategy of launching and backing innovative healthcare companies that address unmet medical needs and improve healthcare delivery. Investments will be diversified across key industry sectors, including therapeutics, diagnostics, healthcare IT and medical devices. The fund will leverage its position within Partners’ pre-eminent research and healthcare
provider ecosystem to identify leading-edge technologies invented by investigators.The new fund will allow Partners Innovation to seed companies at an even earlier stage, Kitterman said. He noted that gene therapy is one area the fund is exploring aggressively.
“Also, there are many new frontiers in oncology we feel are quite promising,” Kitterman said.
“Bringing discoveries, inventions and innovations from our world-class research community to the market benefits patients, always our primary focus, as well as the life sciences sector so important to the state’s economic future,” said Anne Klibanski, a chief academic officer of Partners HealthCare. “This collaboration underscores Partners’ commitment to promote the commercialization of inventions and discoveries originating from the Partners community and to translate those discoveries into treatments for patients.”
