Last year, Silicon Valley-based Patient Square Capital dropped $300 million to launch a portfolio company aimed at supporting young biotechs. Now, the firm is doubling down on the model, committing to invest another $300 million in an outfit tasked with developing promising medtech startups.
The new Elevage Medical Technologies will follow the approach of Patient Square’s Enavate Sciences—which made its debut nearly a year ago to the day, to capitalize on what it described at the time as a “golden age of therapeutics.”
Both aim to provide financial support and lend their experience to startups looking to build out their technical and clinical operations.
“This is an exciting time for innovation in the medical device field, and through Elevage Medical Technologies, we will support the growth of new, life-changing technologies to impact patient care,” said Evan Melrose, M.D., who has been tapped to be Elevage’s CEO.
Melrose was previously a managing director of the venture firms Spindletop Capital and PTV Sciences and has also served as an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco. He has also held board seats at Bioventus and Intersect ENT, which was picked up by Medtronic in 2022.
“Many medical technologies that have been in development for a decade or more are right at the cusp of making a major impact on patient lives,” Jim Momtazee, managing partner of Patient Square, said in a release. “We want to be bold in our support of that innovation and believe that partnering with Evan allows us to step aggressively into that funding void to position a number of product launches for success.”
The launch comes just weeks after Patient Square closed its inaugural fund with about $3.9 billion in capital commitments, bringing its total assets under management to about $5.9 billion. Its investment portfolio includes Apollo Therapeutics, hearing aid developer Eargo and gene therapy weaver Kriya Therapeutics. Patient Square also acquired longtime prosthetics maker Hanger last year through a $1.2 billion take-private deal, one of the largest medtech M&A moves of 2022.
Enavate Sciences, meanwhile, was launched to support therapeutics companies that may fall outside of Patient Square’s typical strategy, according to Momtazee, who serves as chairman of Enavate’s board of directors.
“[C]urrent financial market dynamics have created significant challenges for therapeutic companies to raise the necessary capital to advance their pipelines. Therefore, we believe this is an excellent time to bring forward a new platform focused on supporting the continued growth needs of these leading companies,” Enavate CEO James Boylan said at its May 2022 launch.