Health IT, Startups

Flare Capital adds former Partners HealthCare CEO and iMDSoft co-founder as executive partners

Dr. Gary Gottlieb a former CEO with Partners HealthCare and Phyllis Gotlib, co-founder and CEO of iMDsoft have joined Flare Capital's team

Gotlib GottliebHealthcare tech venture capital firm Flare Capital has added a couple of executive partners from the healthcare industry to its team in a bid to deepen its understanding of evolving healthcare trends, according to a company statement.

Dr. Gary Gottlieb is CEO of Partners In Health, a provider of health services to people in developing countries. Prior to this role he was the CEO of Partners HealthCare, so he’ll be well disposed to share a healthcare administrator’s perspective and help the venture firm’s portfolio companies address business problems. Phyllis Gotlib was the co-founder and CEO of iMDsoft, a health IT vendor for acute care that seeks to automate clinical workflows until TPG Growth acquired the business in 2012.

In addition to Gotttlieb and Gotlib, (no that’s not a typeo), Flare Capital also added Jonathan Gruber, the  director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research as the chairman of its industry advisory board.

Flare Capital invests in about six healthcare companies each year. So far this year,  it has made investments with Bright Health, a health insurance startup led by a former UnitedHealthcare CEO Bob Sheehy and Philadelphia-based HealthVerity.

General Partner Michael Greeley offered up some insights on the hires in response to emailed questions.

Where are Gary and Phyllis’ investment interests? Will they be there to provide insights? Sit on boards of portfolio companies?

Both are excited and inspired by the role of a wide set of technologies (analytics, mobility, AI, etc) will play in reshaping healthcare delivery models. As such, we fully expect that they will sit on boards of Flare portfolio companies, and in some cases play a very active catalyzing role like our Executive Partner Bob Sheehy did with Bright Health.

What technologies excite Flare Capital where it has not yet made investments? Where does it see the next opportunities?

We see tremendous innovation in novel care delivery models, be it telehealth, new tech-enabled healthcare service models, as well as a suite of enabling solutions like with HealthVerity, which we funded a few weeks ago that will enable buyers and sellers of healthcare data to transact. The IMS – Quintiles merger is very validating for what HealthVerity is setting out to do. As we better understand biological pathways, those insights can be married to clinical pathways, and utilizing advanced AI tools, will drive better more appropriate care at substantially lower costs.

What do Gary and Phyllis view as the challenges facing venture capital investors investing in healthcare startups?

All of us are watching the early stage venture capital industry become much more specialized around industry verticals. Healthcare is such a nuanced and complex industry, unlike any other. My sense is that they both were excited about partnering with one of the largest dedicated healthcare tech funds which can be a life cycle investor and with our investor base, drive important early customer validation and revenues.

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