Hippocrates Ventures has launched the world’s first physician funded social impact digital therapeutics venturecapital fund which plans to be a minimum fund of $10 million consisting of 250 physician investors focused on improving healthcare through technology.
Digital therapeutics, also known as software as a drug, is the concept of a digital program having a clinical and repeatable outcome to either prevent or treat disease. Hippocrates believes that digital therapeutics has the potential to prevent and treat major conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, smoking cessation, alcoholism, stroke, cancer prevention, stress, mental health conditions, and a variety of other diseases. The global digital therapeutics market is anticipated to reach USD 9.4 billion by 2025. The growth of the market has been accelerated by increasing incidences of chronic diseases, increasing emphasis on preventive healthcare, the need to curb healthcare expenditures, and added benefits offered by digital therapeutics.
Laurence Girard founded Hippocrates Ventures and is the Managing Director of the fund. He is also the CEO and Founder of Fruit Street (http://www.fruitstreet.com) which delivers its own digital therapeutics program in the form of a Digital Diabetes Prevention Program.
The inspiration for Hippocrates Ventures came from Girard’s success at Fruit Street where he raised more than $10 million from 250 physician investors over a four year period. Girard explained, “This model of being funded by physicians has been a tremendous help because they act as medical advisors in what we call a medical think tank. Physicians are also similar to healthcare entrepreneurs in that both of them want to have a social impact. I was being approached by dozens of healthcare entrepreneurs who wanted to be funded by physicians instead of traditional VCs. After discussing the idea with a few physicians and healthcare entrepreneurs, it was clear that this idea for a venture fund is something both physicians and healthcare entrepreneurs want.”
Hippocrates Ventures, Girard believes, will have a strategic advantage over traditional venture capital funds because it will use its physician limited partners to assist with finding startups to invest in, scientific due diligence, and helping entrepreneurs with introductions after Hippocrates invests so that they can succeed. Girard further described his vision when he said, “The fund’s and our physician’s focus on social impact will attract healthcare entrepreneurs who are disenchanted with the lack of a desire to have a social impact among VCs.”
Dr. Paul Laband, a primary care physician, investor, and a limited partner in Hippocrates Ventures explained the reason he invested in Hippocrates: “As a primary care physician, I confront on an almost daily basis the limitations and roadblocks of our dysfunctional healthcare system. This is a source of great frustration to me as a professional who wants to use my efforts to improve the quality and delivery of healthcare. I am excited and honored to have the opportunity to invest in Hippocrates because it allows me to be a contributing partner in a project that has potential to transform the use of technology in the healthcare marketplace and improve the care of patients at a scale that is exponentially larger than I could ever achieve as an individual physician.”
In summarizing the thesis of Hippocrates, Girard concluded: “Hippocrates is a group of physicians and healthcare entrepreneurs that are building solutions that will prevent and treat disease and alleviate human suffering using technology. When JFK said we will go to the moon, he did not know how we would get there. We believe to change healthcare, this same moonshot thinking is required.”
