University of Colorado (CU)’s Anschutz Medical Campus closed a $50m healthcare-oriented fund yesterday that was backed by its hospital system, UCHealth, and fellow healthcare provider Children’s Hospital Colorado.

CU Healthcare Innovation Fund’s other limited partners include University of Colorado along with its medical school, CU Medicine. It will invest in early-stage healthcare startups with a link to at least one of its partners, with a focus on digital health, healthcare IT, drug development and medical devices.

The vehicle has built a portfolio of eight companies including remote patient monitoring platform BioIntelliSense, prescription decision support system developer RxRevu and clinical trial digitisation service ClinOne.

The fund has also backed specialty telemedicine provider EConsults, medical education platform Amplifire, drug manufacturing facility operator Staq Pharma, immunotherapy platform developer Complement Therapeutics and personalised drug developer Autoimmune Therapeutics.

The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.

University of Colorado (CU)’s Anschutz Medical Campus yesterday closed a $50m healthcare-oriented fund with commitments from multiple university departments and affiliates.
CU Healthcare Innovation Fund has been backed by University of Colorado along with its healthcare system UCHealth, medical school CU Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. All the LPs have a presence at Anschutz Medical Campus.
The vehicle funds early-stage healthcare businesses such as spinouts with a link to at least one of its partners, with a focus on digital health, healthcare IT, drug development and medical devices.
The goal is to improve patient outcomes by leveraging the stack of data now produced within healthcare, leading to better care provision and lead generation for new drugs. The fund has not revealed the size of investments it plans to make.
CU Healthcare Innovation’s portfolio already contains eight investees, including remote patient monitoring platform BioIntelliSense, prescription decision support system developer RxRevu and clinical trial digitisation service ClinOne.
The fund has also backed specialty telemedicine provider EConsults, medical edtech platform Amplifire, drug manufacturing facility operator Staq Pharma, immunotherapy platform developer Complement Therapeutics and personalised autoimmune developer Autoimmune Therapeutics.
Donald Elliman, chancellor of University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said: “We have been exploring starting a fund of this kind for many years.
“With the maturing of our campus innovation ecosystem led by CU Innovations, our success with several early-stage ventures, and the proven collaboration between all of the CU Anschutz Medical Campus institutions, it was clear the time was right to scale a formal stand-alone fund.”