University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Philips, and the American Heart Association have banded together to start venture capital fund, Cardeation Capital. The $30 million fund, which will be managed by healthcare investment firm Aphelion Capital, will focus on treatment innovations for cardiovascular disease, stroke care, and diabetes, according to a news release.
The trend of hospitals and health systems taking part in corporate venture funds has become increasingly common in recent years. A couple of recent examples include LRVHealth and Aspire Ventures.
Nancy Brown, American Heart Association CEO said in the statement that the collaborative investment approach was one way to address the escalating costs of cardiovascular treatment, which the AHA projects will teeter into the $1 trillion range by 2035.
“New approaches are urgently needed to increase prevention and treatment strategies to reverse the trend for those already suffering from heart diseases, as well as prevent populations from ever getting heart disease,” she said.
Tal Heppenstall, president of UPMC Enterprises — the commercialization arm of UPMC — said the new fund would work closely with clinicians at UPMC’s Heart and Vascular Institute.
Quite a few companies come to mind when it comes to entrepreneurs taking innovative approaches to cardiovascular treatments. Genetesis , a clinical decision support business has developed a 3D mapping tool for clinicians to do a better job of spotting underlying cardiac disorders earlier and triaging them. Toronto based startup HelpWear developed a smartwatch that’s also a heart monitor. If the user has a heart attack, it notifies EMS. The wearable stores all of a patient’s cardiovascular data and gives users real-time alerts when irregularities occur. New York City-based TARA Biosystems is engineering predictive cardiac tissue models that enable faster, safer, and more reliable development of new medicines.
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.
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