(Updated)
The American Heart Association has announced that it has launched a $30 million venture capital fund “designed to spur healthcare innovation in heart disease and stroke care.” The AHA said that the Cardeation Capital fund will be funded by the AHA and co-investors Philips and UPMC.
The fund “will invest in emerging healthcare companies that can measurably impact the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and stroke and their risk factors, including diabetes.” The fund will be managed by Aphelion Capital, which the AHA describes as “a leading healthcare and medical technology venture capital firm.”
The AHA role in a VC fund may spark some criticism. Steve Nissen (Cleveland Clinic) commented:
I have grave concerns about this initiative. It is the responsibility of professional medical societies to provide clinical and scientific leadership through practice guidelines, scientific journals and educational meetings. Such activities require complete independence from commercial bias or influence. Participating and investing in a venture capital fund is incompatible with the required scientific independence we demand from medical societies. The AHA requires participants in guidelines to be independent of commercial relationships. We need to hold the organization accountable to the its own standards.
Darryl Francis (Imperial College London) had a more immediate response on Twitter:
I have the transcript of the negotiation. By chance it was written on the back of a postage stamp.
“We want to give you $30m, in exchange for which ….”
“Let me stop you right there. We’ll take it!”It proves the AHA truly represents us cardiologists perfectly.
Money talks!
Another Twitter user invited readers to “Hop aboard the Buzzword Bullet Train!”
Groundbreaking … innovative … collaborative … entrepreneurial … strategic … novel … best-in-class … scalable … disruptive … leverage ….
“Enhance returns for the fund & the entrepreneurs in whom it invests …”
Update:
Marilyn Mann sent the following comment:
What would worry me is a situation where this venture capital fund has resulted in the development of some new treatment for cardiovascular disease or prevention of cardiovascular disease, which of course is the whole point of it. If the new treatment is extremely safe and extremely effective, and it is clear what patients benefit from it, then some people would argue that there is not a big problem with the AHA profiting from it. However, what is usually the case is that a new treatment only has a small effect or it is not clear how effective or how safe it is, or what patients could benefit from it. If the AHA then sponsors guidelines that recommend the therapy, that opens them up to charges of bias and conflict of interest.
It would be helpful to know the details of the partnership and the investment advisory agreement, and what types of investments will be made.
When I belonged to a trade union I strongly objected to its having a foreign policy – that’s not what trade unions are for.
Presumably the American Heart Association isn’t for investment management.
What is it for? Adam Smith wrote:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
At last, ‘Hone$ty’ from a $pecial Interests group of doctors
What would worry me is a situation where this venture capital fund has resulted in the development of some new treatment for cardiovascular disease or prevention of cardiovascular disease, which of course is the whole point of it. If the new treatment is extremely safe and extremely effective, and it is clear what patients benefit from it, then some people would argue that there is not a big problem with the AHA profiting from it. However, what is usually the case is that a new treatment only has a small effect or it is not clear how effective or how safe it is, or what patients could benefit from it. If the AHA then sponsors guidelines that recommend the therapy, that opens them up to charges of bias and conflict of interest.
It would be helpful to know the details of the partnership and the investment advisory agreement, and what types of investments will be made.