Category Archives: Healthcare Venture Capital

Vision Without Execution is Hallucination

Posted on January 29, 2012 by
Thomas Edison: Turn on your heartlight

Recently Steve Case wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post called Give Entrepreneurs Room and They Will Grow the Economy. For those not familiar with him, Case was the original founding CEO of AOL and he has been an active healthcare investor, among other things, for the past 7 years. My firm, Psilos Group, has previously co-invested with Case’s Revolution Health Fund.

Anyway, it was a very good editorial and one of the statistics within it particularly stood out to me in light of my venture capital role: firms less than five years old have produced 40 million American jobs over the past three decades — accounting for basically all of the net new jobs created in that period. That is a pretty stunning fact and also one that really makes a person scratch their head about current U.S. policy towards start-ups. It is worth watching this Kauffman Foundation 3 minute video that is very instructive about start-ups and job creation.

No where is this issue more relevant than in the healthcare industry, which conveniently happens to be the only thing I know anything about. In a world where … (read the rest)

Posted in General Business Issues, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Where The Boys Are…And Not The Girls: Tales from the 2012 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference

Posted on January 14, 2012 by

I set off for five straight days at the annual JP Morgan healthcare conference last Monday, but on the way drove the carpool to my daughter’s high school that morning in a last ditch attempt to act like a responsible and caring parent. My poor daughter gets completely abandoned during JP Morgan week every year and, as she so aptly put it, it is a mixed blessing. When I arrived home finally yesterday afternoon she said to me that she likes that I am not there to tell her what to do, but not that I am not there to act as her personal assistant and laugh at her jokes. I must admit, she is pretty funny. Especially that part about the personal assistant.

Anyway, during my last parental act of last week, my daughter’s friend, who also happens to be a JP Morgan orphan (her dad is also a healthcare venture capitalist), asked me from the back seat, “So, are there many women at this conference?”

It was interesting to get that question from a 15 year old, as it certainly wasn’t the kind of thing I worried about … (read the rest)

Posted in Girls Rule!, Healthcare, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Uncategorized, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

11:59 and Not a Second Later

Posted on December 30, 2011 by
clock

Okay, I know it’s kind of cheating, but I am re-posting my column from New Year’s 2011 where I turned Auld Lang Syne into an ode to venture capital.  Why? you ask. Because I haven’t been able to come up with another decent New Year’s song to parody and I have been drinking far too much this holiday season to come up with something entirely new. Let’s hope that some of that cell regeneration stuff that my colleagues are funding will help me out in the year to come.

As for potential alternative New Year’s songs to work with, there is an unfortunate dearth of options.  Unlike Christmas, which is full of good music that everyone knows, New Year’s has been left in the dust.  There is, of course, Barry Manilow’s Just Another New Year’s Eve, but I deemed that too depressing; plus it has become remarkably unhip to admit you know the words to Barry Manilow songs.  There’s also Dan Fogelberg’s Just Another Auld Lang Syne; you remember–the one that starts, “I met my old lover in the grocery store…”  Had to ding that one for being … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Private Equity, Random Thoughts of the Day, Uncategorized, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

mHealth: Hallelujah or Bah Humbug?

Posted on December 8, 2011 by
Bah Humbug!

3600 people and I went to the mHealth Summit earlier this week in Washington, DC and, having spent the better part of 48 hours listening, I am still not sure what to make of this emerging healthcare sector.

Given the incredible energy and high attendance at the conference, it would be easy to get caught up in the hype that surrounds mobile health and it’s many potential uses. There were an enormous number of companies present and news of many new financings (e.g. HealthTap receiving $11.5 million from Mayfield, Mohr Davidow and others).

For those of you not yet familiar with the buzz word, mHealth is basically what you get when you cross healthcare with mobile phones. It is essentially the love child of Ma Bell, Hippocrates, Dr. Oz and Steve Jobs.  For the true believers, and there are a lot of them, mHealth is the answer to the healthcare systems prayers. By bringing texting and Wifi and reams of personalized data to the fingertips of the masses, healthcare will right itself,  costs will decrease and angels will sing. Can I get a Hallelujah?

The entrepreneurs in the mHealth space … (read the rest)

Posted in Diagnostics and Screening, Health and Wellness, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Coming Soon to an Eyeball Near You

Posted on November 27, 2011 by
terminator.eye

I have written lately about how venture investors who have had long traditions of investing in medical devices are abandoning this sector. Among the reasons given are the increasingly difficult regulatory and reimbursement environments, the lengthy time to liquidity and the anemic IPO market. But having seen a few stories lately about the newest medical technologies hurtling towards the market, I am beginning to think that the best reason to run from this field is that the inventions are getting crazier and crazier.

Exhibit A is a new type of contact lens that projects images directly onto the eye. According to its inventors at the University of Washington, this new contact lens “could enable wearers to read floating texts and emails or augment their sight with computer-generated images.” Well thank God because it was getting exhausting for me to look all the way from my eyes to my iPhone to read my email.

I hardly know where to begin on this one. First of all, I don’t know about you but damn near everyone I know is already so glued to their email device that they forget to participate … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Medical Devices, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hey, Where Is Everybody Going?

Posted on November 13, 2011 by
lightswitch

If you are simply reading the paper or engaging in any random cocktail party conversation these days, it doesn’t take long before you are reading or talking about healthcare.  Health and healthcare issues have been a dominant topic in the national media since the 2008 Presidential election and have been constantly in the news as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has taken center stage.  Even if PPACA weren’t always in the headlines, stories about employers who are grasping for solutions to their healthcare cost crises would still be.

Given the massive amount of change currently underway in the U.S. healthcare economy that has resulted from PPACA, the earlier healthcare IT stimulus legislation (ARRA) and the acts of employers saying that they’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, we have bona fide industry upheaval on our hands.  And where there is upheaval, there is opportunity.  Today more than ever there is a tremendous opportunity to find new ways of doing business in the world of healthcare through changing delivery systems, insurance models, technology solutions, drug discovery, device innovation and just about everything else that … (read the rest)

Posted in General Business Issues, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Private Equity, Uncategorized, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Great Leadership and the Business of Baseball

Posted on October 2, 2011 by
Don't try to tell me the season isn't over, you annoying Yankee fans

Well, the season is over for my beleaguered SF Giants, but I just got back from seeing the movie Moneyball and it was a worthy substitute for a day at the ballpark.  I loved this Michael Lewis book when it came out and remember it as my all time favorite book about business.  I know millions have written about Moneyball, but the movie made a big impression and reminded me why I loved the book so much so I thought I’d make a note here.

Moneyball is ostensibly about how the Oakland A’s of the early 2000′s blew up conventional baseball by adopting Sabermetrics:  the art of selecting players based on statistical models instead of old-school scouting. Sabermetrics was “invented” by a guy named Bill James, who was a baseball fanatic and a security guard at a pork and beans factory.  It was popularized by A’s General Manager Billy Beane, a former baseball player who failed after being hailed as a golden boy prospect on the field.  As the story unfolds, it appears Beane has virtually lost his mind after losing in the play-offs and sets to work  building … (read the rest)

Posted in General Business Issues, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Random Thoughts of the Day, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision

Posted on September 27, 2011 by
It takes a vision

“We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Xconomy (a great web publication of life science and technology news and analysis that targets the “innovation community”) asked me to serve as their roving correspondent to provide a view from the MedTechVision Conference, held September 15-16 at the Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park, CA.  Here is my report:

“I hadn’t given any thought to the fact that it was theoretically a ‘women’s conference before I walked into the room. I’d just promised the organizer, a friend, that I would come,” said Vance Vanier, CEO of Navigenics. “But walking into the room full of women had quite an impact; I realized how much I stood out and it was worth noting. It made me realize what women experience when they go to events like this.”

Vanier was commenting on his experience as a male attendee at the conference, which was intended to provide a platform for the many women executives in the medical technology field to wield the microphone. Some 200 women and 3 intrepid men spent two days in a room hearing … (read the rest)

Posted in Girls Rule!, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Medical Devices, Uncategorized, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Innovating for More Affordable Healthcare

Posted on August 18, 2011 by
Healthcare services can make your head explode

Yesterday the Stanford Social Innovation Review published a 24-page supplemental section in its journal that was sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) and entitled Innovating for More Affordable Healthcare.  As a fervent UC Berkeley supporter it pains me to promote anything out of Stanford, but I admit this is some very interesting reading  (it helps that a few of us Cal Bears snuck some editorial influence into the supplement, right Will?).

The supplement says it’s about “new ways for social investors to spur innovations that create better, stronger, faster, and less expensive healthcare in the US.”  But if you read the piece as a whole, the 24-page supplement is really about how challenging it can be to bring about impactful innovation in the delivery of healthcare services and how very similar the issues are whether you are looking through a social or financial investor lens.

There are many articles in this document but a few items really stood out to me.  Authors Stefanos Zenios and Lynn Denend underscore Mark Smith’s (CHCF) and Barbara Lubash’s (Versant Ventures) opening comments about how hard it is to get from a successful … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Living on the (Health) Edge

Posted on August 6, 2011 by
It's good to stay outside the lion

 

Can you imagine if every day you went to work and 20% of the time you screwed up?   I realize that this is how baseball players live their lives, with a batting average around .300 or less, but I’m talking about other people.  Say you’re Beyonce and 20% of the time, when you step up to the microphone, your voice cracks uncontrollably.  Or you’re a race car driver and 20% of the time you finish your day upside down with the wheels spinning.  Maybe you’re a lion tamer and in 1 out of every 5 circus performances you end up inside the lion. I’m guessing you would not be in business for long.  Or maybe you’re just a regular person, say a mailman, and you deliver 20% of the mail to the wrong address, or a Starbucks Barista and 20% of the time you make a latte when the customer asked for a Frappuccino, which is really bad when said customer needs their coffee STAT.

Now imagine you’re in a job that fundamentally affects other people’s lives, like say healthcare.  What if people in the healthcare field made … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare Venture Capital, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments