Jennifer Friel-Goldstein, managing partner for life science and healthcare practice at SVB Capital, and Christopher Picariello, president of Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, discussed how innovation is fuelling the growth of the healthcare sector at the GCV Digital Forum 2021.
“At Johnson & Johnson Innovation our ultimate mission is to identify the best ideas wherever they might be in the world and provide a diverse set of investment tools to accelerate their development,” said Picariello.
“We want to achieve a successful translation of the best science into effective solutions for patients and consumers, to help them live healthier lives,” he added. “We focus primarily on three segments within the healthcare industry: pharmaceuticals, medical devices and consumer health, trying to bring our long-term support to entrepreneurs at all stages of their journey, from discovery to commercialisation, from the early creation of new companies to series A, B and beyond.”
The importance of fuelling innovation and technological advancements has become particularly significant during the pandemic, when the entire healthcare industry has been affected by the race for a covid vaccine.
“The pandemic has been a very challenging time for the entire healthcare industry, but has also been a time of great innovation,” said Friel-Goldstein. “It has allowed SVB to flex what is its core, putting the entrepreneur at the centre of every investment decision and strategy. As an organisation, this was one of our proudest moments, working hard to respond to a crisis and get to see science winning and achieving unimaginable results.
Furthermore, an important factor that has emerged during the pandemic, especially across the healthcare industry, has been the ability to build syndicates and partnerships with the aim of achieving common goals.
“We consider syndication as a critical part of the ecosystem,” said Picariello. “It is important to find great partners to syndicate great innovation, because we do believe that it takes a village to finance a great opportunity.”
“Life sciences is a collaborative industry by nature,” added Friel-Goldstein. “Investors often syndicate deals, and at SVB we work closely with our partners and we are very supportive of syndication and collaborations with traditional, corporate and alternative investors to support further innovation. With this goal in mind, we have been able to deploy different tools, depending on the capital needs and requirements of each given company that we find interesting, to fuel its growth and boost its expansion.”