Investment in healthcare technologies put under the microscope at seminar hosted by Envestors & Coutts.

Live longer, Live better is our increasing expectation. But this brings enormous and ever-growing costs. Last week, sophisticated healthcare investors, early stage healthcare technology companies and a panel of leading healthcare investment experts were brought together by Envestors and Coutts to discuss how investment and Technologies for Health can provide a solution to this global challenge and critically how best to both support and finance pioneering young companies to bring their products to market and determine potential returns for investors.

Panel speaker, Marc d’Abbadie, Investment Director of Spark Impact, managers of the North West Biomedical Fund and one of the most prolific investors in the medtech arena, highlighted the increasing importance of business angels to these companies. Simon Harris, Investment Director, Envestors shared this experience, commenting “As Venture Capital funds abandon pre-revenue enterprise in favour of later stage companies, competition for funding through government support agencies and angel investors is becoming increasingly intense”.

Martin Hunt, investor and director of several healthcare ventures and Director of i4i, the NIHR’s invention for innovation programme, shared views on how healthcare companies can take advantage of partnering with academic and research institutions to gain access to additional sources of funding.

The rapid rise of the development of digital technologies in the self-management of patient healthcare was explored by expert healthcare entrepreneur, Rosemary Cunningham-Thomas, with Envestors presenting pioneering diagnostics, devices and digital health companies, Endo Technolo