Q&A with William Taranto, president, Merck Global Health Innovation (GHI) Fund, and vice-president, Merck Global Health Innovation Group
Bill Taranto, president of US-headquartered pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co’s corporate venturing subsidiary, Merck Global Health Innovation (GHI) Fund, and vice-president for Merck Global Health Innovation Group, said: “The Merck GHI Fund anticipates another big year of exits and new investments. We anticipate at least five exits and new investments in oncology, infectious disease, vaccines and supply chain.
“We also believe we will see consolidation of digital health assets, especially in oncology and health IT. The number of private equity players entering the healthcare space has increased dramatically over the last two years and we see the trend continuing. Merck GHI will also ramp up our private equity function to consolidate assets in ecosystems of interest.
“Overall, even in light of the covid pandemic, GHI had an outstanding year. Some highlights include:
- Completed nine new investments: Comsort, ILUM/IDC, Tasso, Inc., Precise DX, Vastbiome, Aerosafe, Volansi, M2GEN and Zapata computing
- Completed five follow-on investments: Koneksa Health, Antidote, Syapse, Decipher and Preventice
- Successfully spun out Ilum to IDC and Comsort as an independent company
- Completed three exits: Exostar, Trinetx and Preventice (our second unicorn)
- GHI had 21 commercial agreements signed with our portfolio companies by Merck Research Labs, Merck Human Health and Merck Supply Chain
- Evergreened fund for the second time
- Launched a new investment area called Next Horizon where we have dedicated $50m to explore new ideas that are at least five to seven years to maturation in the digital health space.
“The biggest issue or pain point for corporate venture is the constantly changing leadership within the parent company and change of strategic direction. That being said, our model has allowed us to be flexible and adapt easily to these changes but most firms cannot or do not adjust well.
“As I think about what we can do better, as the digital health industry matures there is an obvious need to move from disparate point solutions to combined or platform approaches for customers, be they hospital systems, insurers or employers. An element of this move could be the identification of synergies between the portfolios of like-minded investors. In essence, broadening the idea of portfolio synergies beyond what is in any one investor’s stable.
“Prior to becoming a corporate venture capitalist, I was in healthcare investment banking.”
