A webinar discussion sized up the current capital markets and how healthcare and life science investors and startups can best navigate it. The webinar conversation revealed the role of automation, alternative funding mechanisms and how these factors are creating new investment and funding opportunities. They also shared how they perceive the differences between health tech, biopharma, and pharma tech investment.
Gurdane Bhutani, MBX Capital managing partner, Morgan Cheatham, Breyer Capital partner, and Ben Kromnick, head of healthcare and life sciences with fintech business Mercury, shared their observations and outlook as part of the webinar, sponsored by Mercury. AI was a big part of the discussion not only because of its impact on drug development from automating administrative tasks to identifying ways FDA-approved drugs can be repurposed, but also because of its impact on the time it takes to accomplish these tasks.
Bhutani noted that because the cost of developing a drug far outstrips product development in any other industry, anything that can reduce the research and development process has a great deal of value and this is why AI has generated so much interest in the biopharma sector.
“When you think about the value of AI, people talk a lot about speed, they talk a lot about cost. I go back to what Gurdane said: the most important metric that we want to benchmark AI against is increasing the probability of success for that given program because that ties exactly to how we think about that net present value equation of valuing that asset,” Bhutani added.
Kromnick observed that he’s seen a wave of innovation at private equity-owned hospitals and health systems. It comes at a time when academic medical centers have been particularly challenged by cuts to government grants.
Cheatham observed that although the capital markets are “extremely tight” currently, there continues to be a great deal of capital on the institutional side and a lot of deal activity from institutional venture capital firms. He also noted that Breyer Capital often collaborates with family offices and other organizations to back new companies.
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Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC.
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