Which sectors is the partnership going to focus on?

The collaboration will evaluate opportunities in a number of healthcare areas, where the Novartis portfolio can address unmet medical needs. This includes innovative pharmaceuticals, quality affordable generics, vaccines and diagnostic tools, as well as over-the-counter drugs, eye care, and animal health products.

What is the status of funding in the collaboration?

As part of the collaboration Novartis will explore the possible support to healthcare start-up companies by the Novartis Venture Fund (NVF). Generally, the investment focus of Novartis Venture Funds (NVF) is on development of novel therapeutic platforms and on medical devices, diagnostics and drug delivery systems. In our investment, we look for unmet need and clinical impact, novel proprietary science and understanding of mechanism, management, board experience and capital efficiency in the program.

The preference is to invest at the earlier stage to build the company and follow with additional investment in pace with the company’s progress. In particular, the NVF supports early ideas with the plan to form companies once the technology has been further validated.