Cleveland Clinic Innovations has hired Pat Fortune, a venture capitalist who spent the previous decade with Boston Millennia Partners.
Fortune’s new title is senior general manager, according to the Innovations group’s June newsletter.
“Part of my job now is to figure out better ways to define and harvest the intellectual property and content coming out of Cleveland Clinic,” Fortune said.
He’ll work with the Clinic’s research and genomics groups to find ways to make technologies they develop more commercializable, for example.
At Boston Millennia, Fortune helped manage the company’s portfolio of drug and device companies, which includes CardioMEMS, CombinatorRx and Histogenics.
He estimates that he’s overseen about 50 M&A deals.
Fortune had previously been a member of Cleveland Clinic Innovations’ advisory board.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Fortune joined the Clinic in May, though he’s yet to update his LinkedIn page with that information and is still featured on Boston Millennia’s website.
The Innovations group has captured some headlines this year after striking partnership deals with the University of Notre Dame and North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. The Clinic’s Innovation group will help the two organizations commercialize discoveries made by faculty and researchers.
