New collaboration between EIF and EIT Health to attract more support for Europe’s healthcare and life science sector.
EIF and EIT Health sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to attract additional funding to the health and life science sector across Europe. Here the MoU will help both institutions to collaborate, share best practices and pursue new avenues to support innovation in the sector
The new collaboration will enable EIF and EIT Health to set-up a new Venture Centre of Excellence (VCOE) in the healthcare and life sciences sector.
The Memorandum of Understanding
The European Investment Fund and EIT Health have signed a Memorandum of Understanding enabling cooperation between the two institutions to further support the sustainable growth of the European healthcare and life sciences enterprises. The MoU will enable both institutions to bring together their respective network of partners in order to attract private investment finance for companies in the sector.
The aim of the cooperation is indeed to bring two worlds closer together: EIF, by bringing its extensive network of venture capital funds and their portfolio companies, and EIT Health, by sharing a network of best-in-class health research institutions and pharma or med-tech enterprises and their respective deal flow of start-ups.
The increased integration of the respective ecosystems of these two institutions seeks to increase the availability of venture capital to the industry and enhance networking, market knowledge, strategic collaborations and the sharing of investment opportunities amongst the different industry players and venture capital funds.
“Collaborate better and identify together new opportunities for growth”
During the signature event at the EIT Health Industry Partners’ Meeting in Amsterdam, Pier Luigi Gilibert, Chief Executive of the European Investment Fund, stated: “Europe is at the forefront of life sciences innovation in many domains but is faced with more limited availability of financing and a fragmented life science ecosystem.
“I am excited to be entering into a partnership with an institution like EIT Health with a vast partner network in Europe including the top tier research institutions, universities, pharma and med-tech companies as well as payers.
“The cooperation agreement signed today will allow both EIF and EIT Health to help Europe’s start-ups and corporates in the healthcare and life science sector to collaborate better and identify together new opportunities for growth.”
Contributing to health and life science sector
Jan-Philipp Beck, Chief Executive Officer of EIT Health stated: “At EIT Health we have created a fantastic eco-system that connects over 150 top players from across Europe representing excellence in health innovation. We are set up to deliver new innovations and contribute to the re-imagining of European healthcare systems for its long-term sustainability.
“Connecting to the EIF, the largest investor in European life science venture capital and the sector’s most active limited partner with ~ EUR 2bn in commitments, close to 100% market coverage and an annual volume of around EUR 300m, is a tremendous opportunity to mobilise the investment needed to scale.”
Fostering relations and enhancing the industry
The new collaboration will enable EIF and EIT Health to develop the Venture Centre of Excellence (VCOE) – the first collaborative framework on a pan-European scale aimed at fostering relations between corporates from the pharma / med-tech sectors and managers of European life science VC funds.
This is expected to increase the availability of venture capital to the industry and enhance networking, exchange of market knowledge, strategic collaborations and the sharing of investment opportunities amongst the different industry players.
