US-based healthcare system Partners HealthCare closed approximately $171m in financing on Wednesday that will be put into two corporate venturing funds.
The overall amount consists of a $105m investment by Partners institutions in the group’s Partners Innovation Fund, which invests in early-stage healthcare companies, and $66.1m in capital raised from external investors that will go to its Partners Innovation Fund II vehicle.
Partners Innovation Fund was launched in 2008 with a $35m investment by Partners Healthcare. It focuses on seed and follow-on investments in developers of technology based on intellectual property that is at least partly owned by its hospitals.
The $105m includes two $50m commitments, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, and it will be used to support the development of medical technology created in the Partners system.
The capital for Partners Innovation Fund II was sourced from backers including pharmaceutical companies Astellas Pharma, Eli Lilly, ShangPharma Corporation and Simcere Pharmaceutical Group, which jointly make up the fund’s anchor investors.
Partners Innovation Fund has invested in 32 portfolio companies including CoStim Pharmaceuticals and Adheron, which were acquired by pharmaceutical firms Novartis and Roche respectively, and Editas, which raised $94.4m when it went public in February 2016.
Anne Klibanski, Partners HealthCare’s chief academic officer, said: “Bringing discoveries, inventions and innovations from our world-class research community to the market benefits patients, always our primary focus, as well as the life sciences sector so important to the state’s economic future.
“This collaboration underscores Partners’ commitment to promote the commercialisation of inventions and discoveries originating from the Partners community and to translate those discoveries into treatments for patients.”