Devices & Diagnostics, Health IT, Pharma, Startups

Venture Capital: Is cancer worth investing in?

Cancer’s become a core area of venture capital interest, particularly given the rise of personalized […]

Cancer’s become a core area of venture capital interest, particularly given the rise of personalized medicine. But in a cluttered marketplace it’s tough to differentiate the worthy from the chaff. Here are some observations from a panel of investors said at the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit Monday:

– “Pharma’s really very good at distributing medicines, but not that good at innovating and developing them anymore,” Ashley Dombkowski, a managing director at Bay City Capital said.

– “As seductive as the solutions are from diagnostics – also the promise – it’s a challenging roadmap to navigate the discovery of biomarkers,” said Michael Greeley, a general partner at Foundation Medical Partners. “It’s even more difficult for them to get optimized and sold.”

– It’s easier these days to launch a worthwhile diagnostic, device or therapeutic with an investment of a few million, as opposed to tens of millions, Greeley said.

“But I fear that as exciting as the ‘is the cancer worth investing in?’ question is, there’s a lot of false positive data out there,” he said. “There are almost too many solutions in the market – it’s very chaotic.”

-Always looking outside, Elaine Jones – executive director of Pfizer Venture Investments – recognizes that much of the innovation in the cancer and personalized medicine space does exist independent of big pharma. “Not to say we’re not innovative and do some creative stuff as Pfizer,” Jones said. “We just typically recognize there’s a lot more going on externally.”

Jones said Pfizer’s venture philosophy is that it doesn’t invest in anything that’s directly competitive with what’s being developed internally – just technologies that are complementary.

Shares0
Shares0