Healthcare Investors Enthused by Looming Disruption

Attendees at Privcap Media’s Healthcare Game Change event, held on Nov. 18 in New York, were treated to a procession of thought leaders who shared visions of a future where healthcare is revolutionized in partnership with private capital.

More than 150 institutional investors, private equity general partners and healthcare innovators gathered in New York in November to discuss the role that private capital will play in transforming the largest economic sector in the U.S.—and the role that healthcare will play in the institutional private equity portfolio.

Privcap Media’s Healthcare Game Change, held at the New York Athletic Club, was a debut event designed to bring together the entire ecosystem of private equity healthcare investing.

“We were very pleased with the quality of our speakers and presenters, as well as with the caliber of attendees,” says Privcap CEO and co-founder David Snow. “Given the huge transformation taking place in healthcare, it is a natural focus of interest for private equity, and that interest came through in the level of engagement that our delegates had with each other.”

The event kicked off with an onstage conversation between two top executives from the largest private purchaser of healthcare in the US and one of the largest providers of care. Mary Beth Kuderik, CFO of UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, and Dr. Thomas Graham, the chief innovation officer at Cleveland Clinic, discussed improvements that will be forced upon the healthcare system by more discerning purchasers.

Also on the agenda were top partners from the largest players in private equity healthcare—TPG Capital, Apax Partners, The Carlyle Group, and Bain Capital. “When you find dynamic sectors, those tend to be the bet fit for our business model,” says Bain’s Chris Gordon. “Right now, healthcare—probably more than any other sector,” has attractive dynamics.

Among the highlights of the event were two keynote presentations by PE-backed CEOs who are bringing disruptive innovations to huge submarkets within healthcare. Dr. Joshua Bilenker, founder of Loxo Oncology, spoke of the capital markets pain points he encountered while building up a company that hopes to be a leader in the precision medicine revolution. Dr. Jay Parkinson, founder of Sherpaa, presented the case for a doctor-patient relationship founded on the kind of smartphone texting that is currently confined mostly to everyday friendships.

The end of the day saw emerging markets GPs present the case for healthcare private equity as one of the best ways to capture the incredible growth expected in developing economies over the coming decades.

A full report on the event’s panels and breakout sessions will be available from Privcap in the coming weeks.