Patient Square Kickstarts Biotech Investment Firm Enavate Sciences

New biotech investment firm Enavate Sciences launched with an initial capital investment of $300 million from health care investment company Patient Square Capital. The new firm expects to raise another $200 to $300 million this year from family offices and wealthy individual investors.

“Patient Square Capital’s approach to investing in therapeutics focuses primarily on backing talented teams in interesting areas of medicine and progressing multiple clinical programs toward regulatory approval,” Jim Momtazee, managing partner of Patient Square and chairman of the board of directors for Enavate Sciences, said. “This new platform will support a series of these companies that collectively have similar transformative potential by providing the funds and strategic capabilities necessary to advance therapeutic pipelines, which is particularly important given the scarcity of funding in today’s environment.”

James Boylan will helm Enavate. He most recently served as president and head of Investment Banking of SVB Leerink, where he led the shift of Leerink Swann into an industry-leading health care investment bank. Leerink Swann was acquired by SVB Financial in 2019.

“We are in the golden age of therapeutics, where the science has never been better understood and the tools to target disease, engineer therapies and deliver drugs to patients with precision have never been more powerful,” Boylan said.

“Yet current financial market dynamics have created significant challenges for therapeutic companies to raise the necessary capital to advance their pipelines. Therefore, we believe this is an excellent time to bring forward a new platform focused on supporting the continued growth needs of these leading companies. I am proud to join the team at Enavate and look forward to announcing our initial investments very soon and helping our partner companies reach their full potential,” Boylan added.

In addition to Boylan as CEO and Momtazee as chairman of the board, Dr. Neel Varshney, M.D., and Laura Furmanski, Ph.D., will serve on Enavate’s board of directors. Varshney is a founding partner of Patient Square Capital. Furmanski is a partner of Patient Square and head of Patient Square Insights.

Patient Square’s portfolio includes Apollo Therapeutics, Kriya Therapeutics, SOC Telemed and Summit BHC.

Patient Square most recently completed the acquisition of SOC Telemed in an all-cash deal. The deal was announced on Feb. 3, 2022, and SOC Telemed’s stockholders approved the acquisition on April 4. Upon completion of the deal, the stockholders received $3.00 in cash per share of Class A common stock.

As of closing, SOC Telemed will be a private company. It will continue to be run by Dr. Chris Gallagher, M.D., chief executive officer, who took the position in September of 2021. The company is a leading national provider of acute telemedicine technology, offering its solutions to hospitals, health systems, post-acute providers, physician networks, and value-based care organizations. It launched in 2004.

Its technology platform is Telemed IQ. It provides virtual patient care via teleNeurology, telePsychiatry, teleCritical Care, telePulmonology, telecardiology, teleInfectious Disease, teleNephrology, teleMaternal-Fetal medicine and other service lines.

Patient Square closed on its acquisition of Summit BHC on November 24, 2021. Summit BHC is a network of behavioral health hospitals and addiction centers across the country. Its primary focus is on psychiatric services and substance use disorder treatment. It was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.