Venture Capital in US Medicine: A Briefing for Radiologists

In recent years, there has a been a rapid and significant drop in the number of private practices in US radiology. Many factors have driven this change. One of the most important has been the corporatization of practices. In many cases, this involves third-party financing, one type of which is venture capital. This article will provide an introduction to the venture capital investment model for medical professionals.

From garages to ecosystems: the coevolution of life science incubators and accelerators

Incubators and accelerators catalyze the launch of life science startups and have evolved from simple facilities to vibrant ecosystems offering research infrastructure, programs, and funding. Analysis of financing activities indicates the outperformance of incubator companies relative to accelerators in fundraising, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), and initial public offerings (IPOs), attributed to extended interactions with investors and peers.

Physical attractiveness, same-sex stimuli, and male venture capitalists' financial risk-taking

Financial risk-taking is central to venture capital decision-making, which is increasingly approached from a heuristics and biases perspective. While previous research has identified entrepreneurs’ physical attractiveness as an important heuristic cue in VCs’ investment decisions, this study addresses the role of VCs’ own physical attractiveness in relation to the financial risks they take. Using a dataset for a representative sample of 341 male entrepreneur and male VC dyads in the context of stage financing, this study finds that VCs of below-average attractiveness are more sensitive to the physical attractiveness of the entrepreneur when compared to VCs of average attractiveness. Also, the nature of this effect changes from the first to the second investment round for VCs of below-average attractiveness. Combined, these findings imply that VCs’ funding decisions may be subject to mechanisms that stem from their own physical attractiveness. Theoretical implications for VC decision-making and same-sex stimuli are discussed.

The winding journey of biotech capital raising: deciphering the jargon

Ensuring biotech companies are sufficiently capitalized to propel innovation and development remains a central focus for management. In this article, we draw on our broad perspective interacting with venture capitalists to offer thoughts on investor feedback. Understanding venture capitalists' mindsets and investment theses will increase the probability of securing needed capital.

How Industrial Policy Could Accelerate Innovation In The Life Sciences

The US is expanding public investment in the technology-based industries, including the life sciences, in a move driven by anger, fear, and hope. Anger at high drug prices is leading to downward pressures and eroding traditional private-sector funding for research and development, fear of China's technological and political ambitions is creating bipartisan support for intervention, and the successful development of COVID-19 vaccines has spurred hope for analogous publicly funded breakthroughs in other therapeutic domains. The instruments of industrial policy used by other nations include grants for scientific research, equity investments in start-ups, tax incentives for corporate research and development, credit guarantees for asset-intensive sectors, governmental procurement, and product pricing. In the face of ever-stronger competition, if the US is to retain its leading position in the life sciences, public policy must consider competition among nations as well as among firms. This article analyzes emerging innovation and industrial policy in the three principal sectors in the life sciences: research universities and laboratories; entrepreneurial startups and "scale-ups," and large pharmaceutical and medical device corporations.

The Gap Between AI and Bedside: Participatory Workshop on the Barriers to the Integration, Translation, and Adoption of Digital Health Care and AI Startup Technology Into Clinical Practice

BACKGROUND

Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital health technological innovations from startup companies used in clinical practice can yield better health outcomes, reduce health care costs, and improve patients' experience. However, the integration, translation, and adoption of these technologies into clinical practice are plagued with many challenges and are lagging. Furthermore, explanations of the impediments to clinical translation are largely unknown and have not been systematically studied from the perspective of AI and digital health care startup founders and executives.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this paper is to describe the barriers to integrating early-stage technologies in clinical practice and health care systems from the perspectives of digital health and health care AI founders and executives.

METHODS

A stakeholder focus group workshop was conducted with a sample of 10 early-stage digital health and health care AI founders and executives. Digital health, health care AI, digital health-focused venture capitalists, and physician executives were represented. Using an inductive thematic analysis approach, transcripts were organized, queried, and analyzed for thematic convergence.

RESULTS

We identified the following four categories of barriers in the integration of early-stage digital health innovations into clinical practice and health care systems: (1) lack of knowledge of health system technology procurement protocols and best practices, (2) demanding regulatory and validation requirements, (3) challenges within the health system technology procurement process, and (4) disadvantages of early-stage digital health companies compared to large technology conglomerates. Recommendations from the study participants were also synthesized to create a road map to mitigate the barriers to integrating early-stage or novel digital health technologies in clinical practice.

CONCLUSIONS

Early-stage digital health and health care AI entrepreneurs identified numerous barriers to integrating digital health solutions into clinical practice. Mitigation initiatives should create opportunities for early-stage digital health technology companies and health care providers to interact, develop relationships, and use evidence-based research and best practices during health care technology procurement and evaluation processes.

The study on the relationship between venture capital, tolerance to failure, and enterprise innovation performance

Venture capital not only affects enterprise innovation decisions by providing funds, value-added services and allocating control rights, but also the psychological capital of venture capital can enhance its tolerance for failure in innovation activities of enterprises, and thus have a positive impact on innovation performance of enterprises. This paper uses multivariate and negative binomial regression models, propensity score matching method and Heckman treatment effect model to study the impact mechanism of venture capital on enterprise innovation performance, and the mediation role of venture capital's tolerance for innovation failure in the relationship between the above two; this paper studies the moderating effect of the characteristics of heterogeneous venture capital institutions, such as joint investment strategies and geographical proximity, on the relationship between venture capital failure tolerance and enterprise innovation performance. The results show that venture capital can significantly improve its tolerance for enterprise innovation failure by holding shares and occupying seats on the board of directors of enterprises, thereby bring the increase of the innovation performance of enterprises; if joint investment strategy and close investment are selected, the tolerance of venture capital to innovation failure will have a more obvious effect on the promotion of enterprise innovation performance.

Reflexive expectations in innovation financing: An analysis of venture capital as a mode of valuation

Social studies of expectations are premised on the notion that the future is brought into the present, and thereby expectations about the future come to shape our actions, decisions, and practices in ways that performatively bring about the imagined future. In this article, I examine how social actors themselves understand, construct, and deploy future expectations in innovation financing, focusing specifically on the venture capital industry financing of the life sciences sector. I do so to analyse how these reflexive efforts configure the valuation and investment decisions of these social actors and others. I build on analytical perspectives in STS and adjacent fields such as organization studies and economic sociology that analyse the role of expectations - manifested as stories, narratives, and accounts - in social action. To do so, I unpack how reflexivity comes to configure valuation and investment decisions, and the goals (e.g. exits) they rationalize.

Unveiling Latent Structure of Venture Capital Syndication Networks

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by VC institutions to startups with high growth potential due to innovative technology or novel business models but also high risks. To against uncertainties and benefit from mutual complementarity and sharing resources and information, making joint-investments with other VC institutions on the same startup are pervasive, which forms an ever-growing complex syndication network. Attaining objective classifications of VC institutions and revealing the latent structure of joint-investment behaviors between them can deepen our understanding of the VC industry and boost the healthy development of the market and economy. In this work, we devise an iterative Loubar method based on the Lorenz curve to make objective classification of VC institutions automatically, which does not require setting arbitrary thresholds and the number of categories. We further reveal distinct investment behaviors across categories, where the top-ranked group enters more industries and investment stages with a better performance. Through network embedding of joint investment relations, we unveil the existence of possible territories of top-ranked VC institutions, and the hidden structure of relations between VC institutions.

Open innovation: the key to advancing brain health

With the exponential growth in investment attention to brain health-solutions spanning brain wellness to mental health to neurological disorders-tech giants, payers, and biotechnology companies have been making forays into this field to identify technology solutions and pharmaceutical amplifiers. So far, their investments have had mixed results. The concept of open innovation (OI) was first coined by Henry Chesbrough to describe the paradigm by which enterprises allow free flow of ideas, products, and services from the outside to the inside and vice versa in order to remain competitive, particularly in rapidly evolving fields where there is abundant, relevant knowledge outside the traditional walls of the enterprise. In this article, we advocate for further exploration and advancement of OI in brain health.

Assessing the Clinical Robustness of Digital Health Startups: Cross-sectional Observational Analysis

BACKGROUND

The digital health sector has experienced rapid growth over the past decade. However, health care technology stakeholders lack a comprehensive understanding of clinical robustness and claims across the industry.

OBJECTIVE

This analysis aimed to examine the clinical robustness and public claims made by digital health companies.

METHODS

A cross-sectional observational analysis was conducted using company data from the Rock Health Digital Health Venture Funding Database, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US National Library of Medicine. Companies were included if they sell products targeting the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment phases of the care continuum. Clinical robustness was defined using regulatory filings and clinical trials completed by each company. Public claims data included clinical, economic, and engagement claims regarding product outcomes made by each company on its website.

RESULTS

A total of 224 digital health companies with an average age of 7.7 years were included in our cohort. Average clinical robustness was 2.5 (1.8 clinical trials and 0.8 regulatory filings) with a median score of 1. Ninety-eight (44%) companies had a clinical robustness score of 0, while 45 (20%) companies had a clinical robustness score of 5 or more. The average number of public claims was 1.3 (0.5 clinical, 0.4 economic, and 0.4 engagement); the median number of claims was 1. No correlation was observed between clinical robustness and number of clinical claims (r2=0.02), clinical robustness and total funding (r2=0.08), or clinical robustness and company age (r2=0.18).

CONCLUSIONS

Many digital health companies have a low level of clinical robustness and do not make many claims as measured by regulatory filings, clinical trials, and public data shared online. Companies and customers may benefit from investing in greater clinical validation efforts.

The Impact of Foreign Venture Capital Intervention on Venture Capital Innovation of Startup Entrepreneurs Using Propensity Score Matching Model

The research expects to give full play to the role of venture capital in corporate innovation and enhance the development capability of enterprises. Based on Propensity Score Matching (PSM) model, the characteristics of venture capital and startup enterprises are analyzed, and the innovation of venture capital is discussed. Next, the PSM model is used to analyze the innovation of venture capital intervention in enterprises from risk probability intervention, probability evaluation, matching equilibrium validity test, matching results analysis, different venture capital, and different background risks. The results show that the difference of standardized mean is close to 0, which accords with the equilibrium test. The significant impact of venture capital intervention on the Number of Invention Patent Applications (NIPA) and Number of Utility Model Patent Applications (NUMPA) is 0.1 and 0.01, respectively. Venture capital intervention has a significantly positive impact on NIPA and NUMPA but has no significant positive impact on Number of Design Patent Applications (NDPA). The impact of joint venture capital intervention on the NIPA, NUMPA, and NDPA is 0.0874, 0.0635, and 0.1213, respectively. Hence, the intervention of joint venture capital can greatly promote the increase of Number of Patent Applications (NPA), especially, NIPA, and NUMPA. Compared with private venture capital, joint venture capital plays a greater role in promoting the growth of NPA and NIPA. Compared with private venture capital and foreign venture capital, national venture capital has a stronger innovation orientation and a longer investment cycle, which can greatly improve innovation performance, such as NIPA, while private venture capital and foreign venture capital have a less significant impact on enterprise innovation performance. The results demonstrate that the foreign capital sharing assessment based on the PSM model can be a good predictor of the performance of startups. It is hoped that the research results can provide a reference for the development of startups.

The Internal Connection Analysis of Information Sharing and Investment Performance in the Venture Capital Network Community

In order to explore the internal connection between information sharing and investment performance in the venture capital network community, this study took environmental-governance start-ups as the research object and used the 2009–2020 environmental-social enterprise start-up venture capital investment events as a data sample. The successful exit rate of the venture capital portfolio and the successful listing rate of investment ventures were used as the measurement criteria. Combined with regression analysis, the relationship between information sharing and investment performance in the venture capital network community was analyzed in detail. Research shows that there are differences between the ways of information sharing in the venture capital network communities. In the regression results, all coefficients are less than 0.01. There is a positive correlation between information sharing and investment performance in the venture capital network community. With the increase in enterprise characteristic variables, the degree of enterprise risk information sharing is getting higher and higher. This ultimately leads to more and more frequent corporate investment performance and a higher possibility of acquisition. Among them, the degree of information sharing in the venture capital network community is relatively high, and venture capital companies that are supported by corporate venture capital institutions will benefit even more from listed capital. Not only was the analysis of the relationship between finance and investment in the venture capital network community pointed out in this research, but also the investment development of entrepreneurial enterprises was also provided with feasible suggestions.

Venture Capital Investment in Orthopaedics: Has the Landscape Changed over the Past Two Decades (2000-2019)?

Background. Innovations in orthopaedic technologies often require significant funding. Although an increasing trend has been observed for third-party investments in other medical fields, no study has examined the influence of venture capital (VC) funding in orthopaedics. Therefore, this study analyzed trends in VC investments related to the field of orthopaedic surgery, as well as the characteristics of recipients of these investments. Methods. Venture capital investments into orthopaedic-related businesses were reviewed from 2000 to 2019 using Capital IQ, a proprietary intelligence platform documenting financial investments. Metrics categorized were investments by year, investment amount, and subspecialty domain as per the American Academy Orthopaedic Surgeons website. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for both quantity and dollar amount of investments was calculated over the study period and the two decade-long periods (2000-2009 and 2010-2019). Results. Over two decades, 673 VC investments took place, involving a total of US$3.5 billion. Both the number and dollar value of investments were greater in the second decade (440, US$1.9 billion), compared to the first decade (233, US$1.6 billion). Both quantity and dollar amount of VC investments grew over the first decade, with a CAGR 9.53% and 4.97%, respectively. However, investment growth declined in the latter decade. The largest and most frequent investments took place within spine surgery and adult reconstruction. Conclusion. An initially rising trend in VC investment in orthopaedic-related businesses may have plateaued over the past decade. These findings may have important implications for continued investment into orthopaedic innovations and collaboration between the surgical community and private sector.

The Evolution Characteristics and Influence Mechanism of Chinese Venture Capital Spatial Agglomeration

As an emerging financial entity, venture capital has a significant impact on regional development. However, the research on venture capital mainly focuses on the fields of finance, management, and economics, and fewer researchers study venture capital from the perspective of geography and space. This research explored the evolution characteristics and influence mechanism of Chinese venture capital spatial agglomeration. The innovation of this paper lies in including the spatial effect and conducting a spatial econometric analysis of the spatial agglomeration of venture capital in China after the exploratory analysis of the factors affecting the spatial agglomeration of venture capital. Firstly, based on the data of study area, this paper found that the spatial distribution of venture capital in China had an obvious agglomeration characteristic by using multiple measurement methods. Secondly, by constructing the spatial econometric model based on three different spatial weight matrices, we found that the science and technology environment, financial environment, social environment, and entrepreneurial environment levels were the main factors to affect the agglomeration of venture capital. Thirdly, due to the degree of spatial agglomeration of venture capital being divided into three stages in terms of time dimension, after the regression analysis of different periods, we found that the factors which affected spatial agglomeration of venture capital changed significantly with the passage of time. In addition, from the regression results of eastern, central, and western region samples, we can see that the degree of spillover effect was the lowest in the central region, the highest in the western region, and the middle in the eastern region. At last, this paper provided useful policy enlightenment for enterprise innovation, industrial upgrading, and regional economic management.

The Control Strategies for Information Asymmetry Problems Among Investing Institutions, Investors, and Entrepreneurs in Venture Capital

To analyze the problem of information asymmetry between investment institutions, investors, and entrepreneurs, thereby protecting the interests of all parties and ensuring the income under high risks, some companies listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange are taken as research samples. First, the relations between investment institutions, investors, and entrepreneurs, as well as the causes and solutions of information asymmetry in venture capital, are analyzed. Second, based on the residual model, a model that analyzes the information asymmetry and investment efficiency of the enterprise is built. Finally, through two cases, the relation between the information asymmetry and the investment rate is revealed. The research results show that from 2014 to 2018, the investment level of companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange was below 7.69%; the investment levels of different companies varied greatly, with significant differences in the development situations. Besides, information asymmetry is significantly related to investment efficiency. The corresponding regression coefficient is 0.0119. The larger the enterprise is, the higher the investment efficiency will be. The case analysis shows that it is important to understand and seize the market, and the information asymmetry between the actual environment and the investment environment is more serious. To deal with these issues, material incentives, reputation incentives, control incentives, and stock option incentives are substantive measures that can be taken, which are of great significance for improving the decision-making level of investors and investment institutions and reducing the investment risk of investors and entrepreneurs.

Role of Venture Capital in Enterprise Innovation Under Psychological Capital and Heterogeneity of Entrepreneur Capital

This paper is to explore the impact of entrepreneurial psychological capital and capital heterogeneity on venture capital behavior, and further analyze the effect of venture capital on the innovation activities of enterprises. Based on the existing research results, this paper proposed hypotheses on the relationship between venture capital and technological innovation. According to the data samples of growth enterprises market (GEM) listed companies from 2010 to 2016, the main research variables were defined and a theoretical analysis model was constructed. The theory and empirical research clarify the relationship between venture capital and technological innovation. (1) According to the regression results of venture capital participation as well as innovation input and innovation output, the regression coefficients of venture capital participation are 0.609 and 0.203, which are significant at the levels of 10 and 1%, respectively. It indicates that venture capital participation has a positive impact on the innovation input and output of enterprises. (2) The coefficient of venture capital participation is positive, and the coefficient of HHI×VC¯ is significantly negative. Therefore, the degree of product market competition has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between venture capital participation and technological innovation. Venture capital provides funding support for technological innovation in startups. At the same time, because it holds a certain percentage of shares, it participates in enterprise innovation activities and provides guidance for companies to maintain profitable growth, thereby improving their innovation awareness and level. This research makes up for the shortcomings of the previous research model that uses a single dimension to measure technological innovation. As a result, this study comprehensively investigates the impact of venture capital on the innovation input and output of enterprises, enhancing the integrity and reliability of previous research conclusions.

Race influences professional investors' financial judgments

Of the $69.1 trillion global financial assets under management across mutual funds, hedge funds, real estate, and private equity, fewer than 1.3% are managed by women and people of color. Why is this powerful, elite industry so racially homogenous? We conducted an online experiment with actual asset allocators to determine whether there are biases in their evaluations of funds led by people of color, and, if so, how these biases manifest. We asked asset allocators to rate venture capital funds based on their evaluation of a 1-page summary of the fund's performance history, in which we manipulated the race of the managing partner (White or Black) and the strength of the fund's credentials (stronger or weaker). Asset allocators favored the White-led, racially homogenous team when credentials were stronger, but the Black-led, racially diverse team when credentials were weaker. Moreover, asset allocators' judgments of the team's competence were more strongly correlated with predictions about future performance (e.g., money raised) for racially homogenous teams than for racially diverse teams. Despite the apparent preference for racially diverse teams at weaker performance levels, asset allocators did not express a high likelihood of investing in these teams. These results suggest first that underrepresentation of people of color in the realm of investing is not only a pipeline problem, and second, that funds led by people of color might paradoxically face the most barriers to advancement after they have established themselves as strong performers.

Information Sharing and Investment Performance in the Venture Capital Network Community: An Empirical Study of Environmental-Social-Governance Start-Ups

Information sharing plays a significant role in improving investment performance in the venture capital network community, which serves as an important requirement for the venture capital network to expand to the meso-level and promote its healthy development. Given the important role of Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) start-ups in promoting sustainable development, this paper selects a sample of ESG start-ups in China to explore the relationship between venture capital network community information sharing and investment performance. We also examine the intermediary role of investment capability in this relationship. Empirical results show that venture capital network community information sharing, from both the prospective of breadth and depth, has a significant positive impact on investment performance of ESG start-ups. We also find that the investment capability, such as scouting and coaching, plays a partial intermediary role in affecting investment performance by community information sharing. This research helps to reveal the relationship between venture capital network community information sharing and investment performance. The results provide a theoretical basis and managerial insights for improving investment performance of ESG start-ups.

Who Create Jobs? Venture Capital, Research Grants, and Regional Employment in the U.S

We build on the exploratory and exploitative learning literature that suggests that venture capital and governmental research grants may impact regional employment in a different manner. Using a regional employment dataset in the U.S. medical device sector, our analysis reveals that research grants contribute to create a greater level of regional employment compared with venture capital funding. Furthermore, the positive effects of both funding sources are more salient when intellectual capital is abundant in the region. More specifically, the interaction effect of research grants and intellectual capital is gradually increased in the long term and eventually becomes greater than that of venture capital and intellectual capital, which is relatively constant. These findings highlight the heterogeneous motivations and consequences of two funding sources that should be considered in the future resource allocation policy accordingly.

Approach to the Post Mohs Patient

This article discusses the often unique patient presentations and management challenges of the post Mohs resection surgical patient. This includes social, economic, and health issues. Anesthesia considerations and pre- and postoperative care are also discussed in this article.

Differential effects of public and private funding in the medical device industry

INTRODUCTION

Funding for scientific advancement comes from two dominant sources: public funds used to generate knowledge, and private sector funds in the pursuit of commercial products. It is unclear how to compare the outputs of these two financial mechanisms because both sectors are motivated by common goods but are also governed by divergent forces. Employment within a geographic region may be a metric of mutual value that can be applied equally to assess the societal impacts of two financing sources. Areas covered: The authors focused on the medical device industry, which is a robust sector of growth for the U.S. economy. The U.S. NIH and venture capital community are representatives of public and private capital, respectively. Using a longitudinal employment dataset of 247 distinct locations, the authors found that NIH funding tends to create more jobs directly compared to venture capital funding. Moreover, the indirect effect of governmental funding is initially smaller than that of venture capital funding for the first two years, but eventually surpasses that of venture capital funding. Expert commentary: These findings imply that policy decisions regarding financial allocations in the medical device industry should consider the appropriate typology of financial capital and its consequences.

An investor perspective on forming and funding your medical device start-up

Novel and transformative medical technologies of all forms have the potential to make a significant positive impact on the lives of patients and on the health care system, and one common pathway for guiding such innovations from concept through commercialization is via the formation of a company. For entrepreneurs looking to build a medical technology company, several common challenges await, including questions around how and where to raise funding. Here, we review key considerations for the formation of medical technology companies as viewed through the lens of an investor. We survey common sources of capital for early-stage companies, including grants, angel investors, and venture capital, and offer insights into how to differentiate among them to select the best partners for your start-up׳s needs. Finally, we discuss the critical components of pitching your ideas to potential investors, and offer guidance on best practices and common mistakes. We hope this primer on fundamental concepts and the various health care funding alternatives will prepare entrepreneurs to achieve their mission to improve patients׳ lives through commercialization of their medical innovations.

Technology Transfer: From the Research Bench to Commercialization: Part 2: The Commercialization Process

Technology transfer (TT) encompasses a variety of activities that move academic discoveries into the public sector. Part 1 of this 2-part series explored steps in acquisition of intellectual property (IP) rights (e.g., patents and copyrights). Part 2 focuses on processes of commercialization, including the technology transfer office, project development toward commercialization, and licensing either through the establishment of startup companies (venture capital-backed or otherwise) or directly to industry. In private industry, TT often occurs through the sale of IP, products, or services, but in universities, the majority of TT occurs through the licensing of IP.

The Best of Both Worlds: The Benefits of Open-specialized and Closed-diverse Syndication Networks for New Ventures' Success

Open networks give actors non-redundant information that is diverse, while closed networks offer redundant information that is easier to interpret. Integrating arguments about network structure and the similarity of actors' knowledge, we propose two types of network configurations that combine diversity and ease of interpretation. Closed-diverse networks offer diversity in actors' knowledge domains and shared third-party ties to help in interpreting that knowledge. In open-specialized networks, structural holes offer diversity, while shared interpretive schema and overlap between received information and actors' prior knowledge help in interpreting new information without the help of third parties. In contrast, actors in open-diverse networks suffer from information overload due to the lack of shared schema or overlapping prior knowledge for the interpretation of diverse information, and actors in closed-specialized networks suffer from overembeddedness because they cannot access diverse information. Using CrunchBase data on early-stage venture capital investments in the U.S. information technology sector, we test the effect of investors' social capital on the success of their portfolio ventures. We find that ventures have the highest chances of success if their syndicating investors have either open-specialized or closed-diverse networks. These effects are manifested beyond the direct effects of ventures' or investors' quality and are robust to controlling for the possibility that certain investors could have chosen more promising ventures at the time of first funding.

Broadview Ventures: Investing in the Future of Cardiovascular Technology

Translational investigators and companies face a challenging economic environment when seeking funds to move pre-clinical stage research into human testing and beyond. Specifically, funding for cardiovascular research and product development is difficult to secure, whether from the NIH, venture capitalists, or industry. But new funding models for advancing patient-oriented science to the commercial sector are emerging. Boston-based Broadview Ventures, created by the Leducq Family Trust, promotes the development of technology for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease and stroke through direct equity-based investments. It targets early stage companies seeking to fund proof-of-concept for technologies that hold promise as future breakthroughs for patient care. With 27 such investments over the last seven years, Broadview has considerable experience in the seed/early-stage space, and its investment model is demonstrating early signs of success. Broadview actively seeks collaborations with world-class translational investigators, inventors, and their companies, and welcomes scientific inquiries, discussion and proposals for funding.

Diabetes: an investor's perspective

Total health care expenditure in 2006 was $2.1 trillion. This figure is estimated to double within the next few years as the cost of treating diabetes and other chronic conditions continues to rise. Moreover, the baby boomer demographic is anticipated to place an enormous burden on the health care system and employer-based health insurance premiums were increased at rates as high as 10% per year in 2006.The quest to address these challenges has also created opportunities for investment, particularly in the fields of telemedicine, health care information technology, and medical technology.The author shares his business perspective, informed by years of experience as a physician and astronaut at NASA, and describes new applications of exciting technologies that deliver effective and efficient health care to diabetes patients, no matter where they may be.