US: Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse seeing quick returns with health care information technology
While the region has certainly seen its fair share of tech investments in recent years — with 249 companies receiving a cut of approximately $1.6 billion between 2009 and 2013, according to an annual report by South Side-based state investment program Innovation Works — only 25 percent of those companies were part of the life sciences sector.
“Life sciences are risky,” said John Manzetti, president of South Side life science investment firm and incubator Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. “You have the FDA, the regulatory path. You have issues that [investors] don’t get. They’d rather go invest in something else than go into an area they don’t understand.”
Obstacles aside, Mr. Manzetti said the greenhouse is leveraging the strengths of its portfolio companies and is targeting investors most interested in life science businesses. That targeted sell resulted in Mr. Manzetti helping to create an $8 million venture capital fund that recently saw its first return last month.
The organization’s Executive-in-Residence program, which hires C-level life sciences executives to lead portfolio companies and to connect them to interested venture capital firms and angel investors, also has helped to turn the organization’s health care information technology (HIT) sector into its fastest-growing segment, thanks largely to an ability to make a quick profit.
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