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I interviewed Jeff Harbach, Exec Director Central Texas Angel Network @NVCA Venturescape. He enjoyed practising medecine but was frustrated with the health care system. He looked at ways to have more of an impact on changing that delivery system & went back to business school. Then he became a Chief Medical Officer for a large health system & then ran a very large physician group. He has been involved in early stage life science venture capital for 10 years. He likes it because it truly is a way to make an impact on the delivery system, to improve patient’s lives. The thing that makes a good business deal is that its got to be transformational. Malthus predicted huge growth of world population with resulting disasters. However he didnt take into account innovation. In the US there’s a $45T unfunded mandate for what it would take to take care of the people in the US now if they continue to do things the way they are doing them now. You can’t get there even with perfect public policy! The only way they are going to solve that is to get better efficiency: better health care outcomes for less health care dollars & that comes through innovation! The health care industry is really in a state of transition or flux. The public policy system for health care has to be changed along with the reimbursement system dramatically from fee for service to more accountable care organization to different payment models. So innovation covers many different aspects. Sometimes the most challenging thing is just getting people’s attention because they are so distracted! He has invested in over 40 startups in the course of his career.
