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- Psilos Releases Annual Healthcare Outlook Report: A Golden Age in Healthcare Investing
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Tag Archives: women venture capital
Hot Child in the City, Running Wild Looking Pretty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsE7W4RRdNg”
“Hot Child in the City, Running Wild Looking Pretty”–Nick Gilder
It’s been a while since I got up on my feminist high horse. I mean seriously, how many times can you write about how the number of women at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference approximates the number of women in the starting line-up of SF Giants baseball team? So I’ve stuck to healthcare and investing topics and let others fight the good XX fight for a while (props to the women at XX in Health, Springboard and Astia, by the way).
I even kept my keyboard shut when I saw recently released US Census data reporting that even in the traditionally female role of nursing, the few men that join the field significantly out-earn the women. Men comprise about 9.6% of nurses in the U.S. and their female counterparts earn about 90% of what the men do. Seriously? Give a girl a break.
But every once in a while one sees something that she just can’t ignore. For me that was last week when I heard about a new Disney online game called City Girl. Out … (read the rest)
Posted in Girls Rule!, Random Thoughts of the Day, Uncategorized, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity
Tagged astia, City Girl game, Disney city girl, girl online games, male nurses make more than female, springboard, Women in healthcare, women in private equity, women venture capital, xx in health
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Anatomy of a Venture Capitalist
This week I had occasion to make a presentation at a meeting of one of the investors in my fund, Jacobs Capital Group. Awesome folks, the people there, and they specifically asked me to present the “Anatomy of a Deal” in which I would describe one of my portfolio investments and its associated twists and turns.
In addition to being asked to be professional and informative, I was told, “Be funny.” No pressure. So I decided to ditch the professional and go for funny and informative (the informative part being a description and demo of PatientSafe Solutions’ product and our investment in the company). To kick off my Anatomy of a Deal discussion, I started with a little anatomy lesson for the crowd of 50 or so venture capitalists, strategic investors, lawyers (there are always lawyers!) and assorted other people in the Jacobs Fund community.
I am not a doctor, but a healthcare VC, so I had to focus my anatomy lesson on something I am qualified to describe, that being the anatomy of my esteemed colleagues in the field. It was so well-received (so much for informative, funny … (read the rest)
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen
I wrote most of this post while on a plane flying to New Orleans to attend the funeral of a loving family friend and adopted relative, Tsip Levitov. She was 95 when she died last week and lived a long, wonderful life marked by incredible achievements, particularly for a woman who grew up in an era when women were expected to be wives and not much more.
Among Tsip’s professional accomplishments were to be the first woman in Miami to enlist in the US Navy in WWII. After the war she spent many years as a bookkeeper and then as travel guide for El Al Airlines and others, accompanying tourist groups on far-flung journeys the world over. She was a self-taught expert on chocolate and traveled the world to sample all she could before authoring a book on the topic some years back (good work if you can get it!). She was a force of nature, the woman who “adopted” my sister and me as her granddaughters when our own grandmother died in 1999. At that point the she and my grandmother had been best friends for nearly 85 years. … (read the rest)
A Woman’s Work
OK, I’ve had it. I have laid off the feminista manifestos for a while, focusing my writing mainly on healthcare issues that are my stock in trade. But, as the saying goes, I saw the straw that broke the camel’s back and it came in the form of Wisconsin Republican State Senator Glenn Grothman and his partner in crimes against women, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker. Welcome to my rant.
These two so-called representatives of the “people” have worked together to repeal Wisconsin’s 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which basically guaranteed women (and others) equal pay for equal work. But the political debate on this topic was squarely focused on the gender debate, despite the fact that women already earn on average only 75% of what men make in Wisconsin according to the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health (WAWH). In an interview reported in the Huffington Post about the Act’s demise, Senator Grothman said that the wage gap between men and women is due not to workplace discrimination, but that “You could argue that money is more important for men.” Women, he said, were often more focused on raising … (read the rest)
Where The Boys Are…And Not The Girls: Tales from the 2012 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference
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 healthcare, healthcare conference, Healthcare investment banking, healthcare private equity, healthcare venture capital, JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, Pfizer, psilos, Women in finance, Women in healthcare, women in private equity, women venture capital
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More on “Hey, Where Is Everybody Going?”
Last week I published a post called “Hey, Where Is Everybody Going?” which was about the many venture capitalists who are leaving the practice of life sciences. It was, interestingly (to me anyway), my most popular post to date. I guess there are a lot of us healthcare VCs that are worried that the next time we open the door there will be a new guy in a black hood holding a scythe–and he’s not the same guy that usually comes to the partners’ meetings.
Anyway, the Burrill Report called me and asked me to elaborate on the topic in an interview for their weekly podcast so here is the outcome of that endeavor for those of you just dying to hear my voice (hi mom!). You can listen to the podcast by clicking HERE and following the link on the Burrill Report website.
We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our 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 amy belt, angela macfarlane, bikini medicine, Bray Patrick-Lake, Deneen Vojta, Denise Zarins, Dr. Betsy Thompson, ellen zane, Erica Rogers, ferolyn powell, ginger graham, healthcare IT, healthcare venture capital, Karen Talmadge, medical devices, medical technology, MedTech Vision Conference, Michelle Heying, molly coye, psilos, Robin Cisneros, Stacy Enxing Seng, vance vanier, women in medtech, women in private equity, women medtech conference, women venture capital
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Man! I Feel Like a Woman!
Today’s post was generated as a result of a request by PE Hub’s editor, Jon Marino, who asked me to author a piece for his publication about how male venture capital and private equity executives could “redeem themselves” in the eyes of women in the field. As you can see if you read further, I took another tack with the story, as I am pretty confident that most of the men in my profession don’t view it as their job to redeem themselves for this purpose.
I have been fascinated by the feedback I get on the articles I write on the male/female interaction in my field, as nearly 100% of the emails and written comments I get are from men. Women colleagues will sometimes mention they have read them, but male colleagues take action and write—very interesting. The comments I get from my male fans and detractors range from telling me I am completely off-base and borderline insane (hard to argue with that one) to resounding apologies that men are, in fact, the root of all evil, at least when it comes to the gender-based tensions in the … (read the rest)
It’s Different for Girls
I had one of those moments today that make you realize how complicated the challenge of achieving equality of the sexes in the workplace (or anywhere) really is. I was sitting in the lounge at the gym watching the communal TV. On the screen: Piers Morgan and another guy talking about Hurricane Irene and specifically about the flooding at the Jersey Shore (now that is a Situation). A basic run-of-the-mill middle-aged white guy who looked to be about 50 years old sat down next to me on the couch to watch the TV, which had no audio since the sound was turned off.
For no obvious reason, Michelle Bachman came on the TV screen in the middle of the hurricane story. I said, “I hope that the audio is saying that she got washed out to sea in the storm.” My new seatmate says to me, “It must be really hard being a woman and watching her in a leadership role.”
Because I just can’t help myself, I said back to him, “I really don’t think of it that way. I just think she’s her own isolated idiot. I mean, … (read the rest)
Psst…Can You Sell Me a Dime Bag of Metformin? (plus a dose of Medical Comedy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBb5v1sJhuU”>httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBb5v1sJhuU
If you opened the newspaper and saw an article that said drugs were in short supply and thus their street cost is skyrocketing, causing buyers to go deep into the black market and overseas to replenish their stores, what would immediately come to mind? Pablo Escobar? Willie Nelson needs to re-route his bus? Plot of Cheech and Chong’s comeback vehicle?
But the fact of the matter is that this is the very true story of the U.S. pharmaceutical market right now, where critical shortages of legal prescription drugs are leading physicians and hospitals to turn away patients and/or delay the administration of life-saving medicines. According to a recent NY Times article, “So far this year, at least 180 drugs that are crucial for treating childhood leukemia, breast and colon cancer, infections and other diseases have been declared in short supply — a record number.”
By the way, by “other diseases” they don’t mean weird stuff like cat scratch fever, they mean everyday problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and even drugs for surgery and anesthesia. In other words, we are talking shortages of drugs that could send everyone’s grandma … (read the rest)