Digitalis Commons

Continuing our spotlight series with Charlotte Hubbert, a biotech leader with deep science and business expertise that she has leveraged to make an impact across the industry. 💡 Q: Please share a bit about your background and experience. A: I began my career as an academic scientist and transitioned to venture capital and operating roles in biotech 15 years ago. Being an early stage investor and advisor is one of my most favorite activities. As a Kauffman Fellow, I have a global network of like-minded investors dedicated to both creating shareholder value and innovation impact. Supporting a new team with a new vision for bold change is my jam. From making coffee to negotiating term sheets, from BOD service to operating roles, I bring a wealth of experience and networks to help entrepreneurs be successful agents of change in healthcare.   Q: What’s one piece of advice that you would give to healthcare funders or founders? A: Never be the smartest person in the room – surround yourself with the best and brightest.                Q: What is one thing you hope to achieve by the end of your career? A: I hope to have contributed to the democratization of healthcare innovations for all in need.

Continuing our spotlight series with Charlotte Hubbert, a biotech leader with deep science and business expertise that she has leveraged to make an impact across the industry. 💡 Q: Please share a bit about your background and experience. A: I began my career as an academic scientist and transitioned to venture capital and operating roles in biotech 15 years ago. Being an early stage investor and advisor is one of my most favorite activities. As a Kauffman Fellow, I have a global network of like-minded investors dedicated to both creating shareholder value and innovation impact. Supporting a new team with a new vision for bold change is my jam. From making coffee to negotiating term sheets, from BOD service to operating roles, I bring a wealth of experience and networks to help entrepreneurs be successful agents of change in healthcare.   Q: What’s one piece of advice that you would give to healthcare funders or founders? A: Never be the smartest person in the room – surround yourself with the best and brightest.                Q: What is one thing you hope to achieve by the end of your career? A: I hope to have contributed to the democratization of healthcare innovations for all in need.

We're delighted to kick off another round of our XIR spotlight series, where we celebrate our advisors and their passion for innovation in healthcare. Starting off with Veronica Adamson, a visionary leader in women's health. 🚀 Q: Please share a bit about your background and experience. A: I am dedicated to empowering women's health investors and innovators, ensuring their digital health solutions can reach millions and make a real difference. Having spearheaded global women's health enterprises with a combined scale of $1bn and studying system-level maternal health innovation at Harvard, I have learned the importance of scalability, equity, and efficiency through many trials and tribulations. My goal is to build a brighter future for maternal and women's health in the U.S., so my young children and future generations can thrive. From my tenure in the U.S. and abroad at Philips, Gainwell Technologies, Monitor Deloitte, Rothschild, and others I've acquired best practices that I share with investors and innovators to help them navigate strategy, unmet needs, commercial models, and regulatory challenges. Q: What excites you about working with early-stage innovation? A: Collaborating with early-stage innovations in women’s and maternal health also allows me to continue building a system-level blueprint of what is needed to drive progress toward a healthy future for every woman and child in the U.S. I call this project the “cathedral of the future for women’s health”, which helps me remember that, although I’ve spent ten years developing this view, it will take a “village” and possibly many generations to complete the cathedral! Q: What current trends in healthcare innovation are you most excited about? A: It's tempting to single out something like AI, but what excites me most is the evolution in healthcare investment criteria. Today, we're witnessing more investors, such as ARPA-H and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, incorporating commercial readiness into their early-stage investment criteria. Historically, many innovations, particularly in women's health, haven't combined “Love and Power”, as Adam Kahane might say, to create impact. These innovations need substantial "power" to drive change, such as a plan for generating a return on investment, breaking into established distribution channels, and reaching consumers, patients, and clinicians.

Congratulations to the awardees of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women's Health! We're excited to see the impact these innovators have on the field of women's health. Good luck to all awardees as they build and scale their solutions. #SprintForWomensHealth

Cloning our pets? It's possible....

Our Partnerships team is growing! Digitalis Commons partners with funders like ARPA-H to support early-stage health innovations including data, infrastructure, devices, and therapeutics. We're looking for a product-minded individual to enhance delivery for current clients and grow our services. This equal parts product and business development role involves refining and expanding our service offerings.

Biomedical innovation advances at the speed of scientific progress. And scientific progress is driven by advancements in available tools. For this reason, we've been increasingly curious about the systems, structures, financial products and models available to support the creation of research tools. Our latest newsletter explores this critical link between tool development and medical breakthroughs. From microscopes to CRISPR, we examine how scientific tools have shaped healthcare and why their development often faces unique challenges. Discover creative initiatives supporting tool innovators and join us in asking: are we limiting medical progress by underinvesting in the tools of discovery?

LISTEN to Misti Ushio's interview with Kate Adams on #StartupSuccess to learn about her entrepreneurial journey from investor in life science companies to founder of the cardiovascular biotech firm TARA Biosystems to Managing Partner at Digitalis Ventures and Board Director at Digitalis Commons. Also available on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. #entrepreneur #founder #womeninscience #leadership #venturecapital

Our Executive Director, Lara Mangravite, teamed up with a group of life sciences enthusiasts to highlight new models of funding and accelerating innovation. Check it out below!

Check out Eric Gilliam's latest piece at @freaktakes, where he discusses how organizational structures must adapt in semiconductor research to accommodate evolving goals in a maturing field. As with biological systems, structure also determines function at research organizations. https://lnkd.in/etxPRzJa