Healthcare, biotech, pharma and life sciences are sectors that involve patient bunch of people who are willing to wait for a good number of years before their products or research commercialize.

It can take around 12 years for a drug to travel from the research lab to the patient. Moreover, it is estimated that only five out of 5,000 drugs or roughly 10 percent of the drugs that begin preclinical testing make it to human testing; and out of those five, only one is approved for human usage. On an average, it costs a company around $359 million to develop a drug from research lab to the patient. Thus lack of funding from the investors has always been a major concern for companies in the aforementioned sectors.

The Indian Angel Network (IAN) was established in 2006 with a unique concept to bring together highly successful entrepreneurs and CEOs from India and around the world, who are interested in investing in star-tup ventures that have the potential of creating disproportionate value. The network has identified certain key sectors where it invests. These include agriculture, biotech, pharma, life sciences, education, healthcare, IT and media among others.

Recently on August 23, 2012, IAN invested in a Delhi-based start-up company called Consure Medical which has developed a novel, disruptive technology to treat fecal incontinence. This technology is believed to benefit more than 16 million patients in the country.

Talking to Ms Padmaja Ruparel, president, IAN, BioSpectrum tried to learn what are the current areas where IAN is particularly interested in to invest and what the start-ups in the healthcare and life sciences sector need to know if they wish to seek funding.