Harrington joins Osage University Partners

Bill Harrington (pictured) has joined Osage University Partners (OUP) as a managing director after 12 years as a partner with venture capital firm Three Arch Partners.

At Three Arch, Harrington led investments in and served as a director of nearly 20 healthcare companies, a number of which had their origin as university/research centre spin-outs, such as Nevro (formed at Mayo Clinic).

Prior to entering venture capital in 1999, he spent a decade as an interventional radiologist, working with imaging technologies, medical devices, and minimally invasive surgical procedures.

Robert Adelson, managing partner at OUP, said: "Bill has over a decade of partner-level experience at a top-tier venture fund managing over $1bn in healthcare investments. Bill combines his extensive investment experience with a strong clinical background, which will be critical in evaluating university life science opportunities. We anticipate that healthcare investments will represent half of Osage University Partners’ portfolio."

OUP is a multi-stage fund that invests in start-ups from more than 40 universities and in January last year held its final closing on its inaugural fund at $100m having already invested in 16 companies. Of its portfolio, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, a diagnostic company focused on Alzheimer’s disease, has been acquired by drugs company Eli Lilly and Gevo, a biofuels company, completed floated on a stock exchange last year.

The firm manages the co-investment rights held by its affiliated universities and so gives Osage contractual access to invest in the future financings of companies that have licensed technology from those universities. Affiliate universities then share in Osage’s profit if any is made. Universities nationwide collectively create about 600 new start-ups each year based on their research discoveries and have created nearly 5,000 start-ups over the past 10 years.

Harrington said: "Osage University Partners provides a new approach to investing in the venture capital asset class that offers many advantages over historical models and affords our university partners a means of unlocking an otherwise untapped opportunity."