The digital health investment fund of Debiopharm, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Switzerland, is known for its proactive alignment with highly driven entrepreneurs who are aiming to improve the lives of patients and the efficiency of pharmaceutical research. Start-ups and scale-ups not only benefit from the evergreen fund’s multiple rounds of financial investment, but the team’s strategic expertise in entrepreneurship, drug development and regulatory affairs.
Investment Fields
Debiopharm’s strategic fund invests in the vision of digital health entrepreneurs developing disruptive digital innovations in two fields:
- The transformation of the patient journey.
- The future of drug development.
Solutions for the transformation of the oncology and infectious disease patient journey include digital therapeutics, smart patient monitoring, clinical decision support, and predictive precision medicine.
In drug development, the investment focus is on in-silico trials, computational biology, real-world data, virtual clinical trials, and digital biomarkers.
In other words, the fund actively invests in disruptive digital health solutions that leverage data and artificial intelligence to improve how drugs are developed and how oncology and infectious disease patients are treated.
Impact on Society and Values
"Through our investments, we enable bold entrepreneurs to achieve their ambitions in building the future of health. By doing this we contribute to improving the affordability and accessibility of healthcare, and to bringing better, more efficient drugs to patients," explains Tanja Dowe, CEO of Debiopharm Innovation Fund.
The most significant value that the fund brings to its entrepreneurs – on top of long-term financial support – is insight into the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, and support with building scale-up strategies.
Beneficiaries of Debiopharm’s Investments
In the long run, the main beneficiaries of the investments will ultimately be patients. Leveraging the company’s core values of curiosity, integrity, and patient centricity, the fund tries to provide an answer to the following questions:
- How do we develop drugs more efficiently, so that patients get access to better drugs faster?
- How do we maximise patient outcomes and quality of life during and after treatment?
Personal Leadership
Led by Tanja Dowe, a serial entrepreneur, the fund’s team seeks to understand the future of the overall healthcare environment and new technologies.
“As a team, we need to be forward thinking when we review investment opportunities and innovative solutions. Tomorrow is already here. So, we target the innovative solutions that go beyond tomorrow,” says Tanja Dowe.
Biggest Achievements
Debiopharm’s digital health fund provides financial support and strategic guidance to companies with an ambition to improve the patient journey and re-imagine how drugs are developed. Their portfolio companies’ growing list of achievements include 10 FDA clearances, 15 CE marks, 2 IPOs, and 5 trade exits.
Since 2008, the fund has invested over $120 million in a total of 17 companies.
