CU Healthcare Innovation Fund secured $50 million in committed capital to invest in early stage healthcare companies.
The CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, which is affiliated with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, also partners with UCHealth, Children's Hospital Colorado and CU Medicine. The fund, which secured its maximum target at $50 million, has already invested in eight companies and aims to "aggressively" pursue new opportunities, according to a health system news release.
"We have been exploring starting a fund of this kind for many years," said Donald Elliman Jr., chancellor of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. "With the maturing of our campus innovation ecosystem led by CU Innovations, our success with several early stage ventures, and the proven collaboration between all of the CU Anschutz Medical Campus institutions, it was clear the time was right to scale a formal stand-alone fund."
Future investments will focus on companies that have a business relationship with its institutions and a majority will be digital health and IT ventures. The fund will also invest in therapeutics and medical devices developed on campus and licensed to outside entrepreneurial teams.
The fund aims to develop a portfolio of companies with an initial product to leverage campus resources and meet the needs of providers as well as boost the patient experience and lower costs. The eight companies it currently invests in are:
• BioIntelliSense, a health monitoring and clinical intelligence company
• RxRevu, a prescription decision support company
• ClinOne, a solution that digitizes clinical trials
• AristaMD, an electronic consult platform
• Amplifire, a training and education platform
• Staq Pharma, a 503B pharmaceutical outsourcing facility
• Q32 Bio, a therapeutic platform
• IM Therapeutics, a personalized medicine technology focused on autoimmune diseases