Global investment firm Cathay Capital has set up Cathay Health, a 500-million-euro ($533.4 million) global fund dedicated to investing in the convergence of healthcare, life sciences, and technology.
The new fund will focus on venture- to growth-stage companies across Europe, North America, and Asia whose “innovative tech-enabled products will catalyse groundbreaking advances in medicine,” Cathay Capital announced in a statement on Tuesday.
Cathay Health is backed by institutional and corporate investors such as French public investment bank Bpifrance, global insurance company AXA, and pharmaceutical company Groupe Pierre Fabre.
The fund primarily invests in six areas — life sciences tools, diagnostics, clinical trial innovation, advanced therapeutics, new care models, and next-generation medical devices and materials.
With cheque sizes ranging from 5-50 million euros ($5.3-53.4 million), it will invest in Series A through Series D companies as a lead or co-investor with reserves for follow-on rounds.
Thus far, the fund has made bets on three companies: French medtech Tissium, US-based pre-clinical biotech firm Kojin Therapeutics, and US-based healthcare venture studio Initiate.
The new fund is led by Hongjie Hu, who built the $2-billion medtech and digital health portfolio for Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings. At Temasek, he led public equity, leveraged buyouts, and venture investments in companies such as Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences, cancer liquid biopsy market player Guardant Health, and behavioral health digital therapeutics firm Pear Therapeutics.
“It’s never been more critical to work together to build global solutions for the world’s health challenges… With Cathay Health, we’re deepening our commitment in healthcare to fuel meaningful transformation to our ecosystem and for society as whole,” said Mingpo Cai, founder, chairman and CEO of Cathay Capital, in a statement.
The multi-stage fund plans to leverage its global reach spanning the world’s life sciences and technology hubs, including San Francisco, New York, London, Cambridge, Paris, Basel, and Shanghai, to help portfolio companies scale across borders to access new markets, partners, and patients.
“In the era of data-driven medicine, emerging technologies and solutions at scale have the potential to have a huge impact on human health and care in all its dimensions. These future leaders of the health economy show the promise of strong intellectual property, differentiated technology for personalized care, better access, lower costs and improved efficiencies,” said Cai.
The establishment of Cathay Health represents the latest expansion of Cathay Capital, which has already invested nearly 500 million euros in the healthcare sector to date in 34 companies across three continents from its private equity (PE) and venture funds.
Founded in 2007, Cathay Capital now manages over $4.5 billion in assets with over 220 buyouts, growth, and veture capital investments in companies throughout North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. It has built local presences in Paris, New York, Shanghai, Munich, San Francisco, Beijing, Singapore, Shenzhen, and Tel Aviv.