Looks like 2014 was a bumper year for the Midwest life sciences industry: The region’s 243 companies attracted $1.8 billion in new investments, according a new report. The dollars were pretty evenly distributed across the biopharma, medical device and healthcare IT sectors:
Biopharma: $629 million
Medical device: $593 million
Health IT: $562 million
This data aggregation came from the BioEnterprise Midwest Healthcare Growth Capital Report.
Ohio companies attracted the most capital – $499 million – with Minnesota a close second at $406 million. This is thanks, of course, to the capital drawn by the states’ life sciences centers – Cleveland startups raised $398 million and Minneapolis, $403 million.
BioEnterprise CEO Aram Nerpouni says this reflects national trends of bullish venture investment in healthcare – but that the number of larger deals in these not-s0-flyover companies “signifies a maturing of the Midwest healthcare innovation ecosystem.”
For instance, the largest Midwest deal came from Wisconsin – Shine Medical Technologies raised $125 million. This was followed by Naurex, which had two large fundraises in 2014 that totaled $105 million.
Here’s a look at venture investment over the years, by state and by region: