VC firm announces €280m injection for European healthcare tech

Venture capital firm Life Sciences Partners LSP has secured €280m in funding for new medical technologies, labelling it the largest fund in Europe dedicated exclusively to healthcare innovation.

The money will be invested in private companies developing forward-thinking medical devices, diagnostics and digital health products. Specifically, it will target technologies with the potential to improve the quality of patient care while simultaneously keeping healthcare costs under control.

According to the investment group, the LSP Health Economics Fund 2 was oversubscribed and exceeded both its target size and its original ‘hard’ cap.

Speaking to Digital Health News, Rudy Dekeyser, LSP partner, said: “In the digital health space we have a keen interest in proprietary and scalable products with both a clear potential to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of major diseases and a straightforward impact on cost reduction for the healthcare system.”

Focused on Europe and the US, the fund will look to invest in around 15 private companies. The products of these companies will need to be “on the market or very close to market introduction”.

Dekeyser cited drug compliance, remote monitoring, big data analytics and clinical software as areas of particular interest.

He added that companies hoping for a share of the fund would have to “convince us that there is a clear path towards the integration of their innovative product in the complicated healthcare ecosystem, has to know who will pay for their product or services and should have access to the necessary partners for broad implementation of their product in the market.”

Investors in the fund include the European Investment Fund and a variety of health insurance companies and institutional investors.

Dr René Kuijten, managing partner of LSP, added: “With this new and sizable fund, we have now firmly established our health economics and medical technology strategy.”

Early in December, the UK government formed a partnership with the life sciences industry as part of a pledge to boost advancements in medical technology in Britain.

Earlier in December, Wayra UK and Merck Sharp & Dohme announced a £68,000 healthcare accelerator programme aimed at machine learning start-ups.