Two funds close $800M to invest in healthcare tech in China and India

digital health

Healthcare is booming all around the world, not just in the U.S. Today, we present you with stories of two funds targeting China and India.

First comes Eight Roads Ventures, which has launched its first dedicated China healthcare fund that came after four earlier funds (from the same firm) with a strong focus on healthcare.

The $250 million Eight Roads China Healthcare Fund will concentrate on four investment areas: most notably therapeutics (40%), followed by healthcare services, healthcare IT and digital health, and medical technology.

There are multiple factors driving the opportunity in China healthcare, including ageing population, increasing patient demands, healthcare payment system, and ambitious policy reforms supported by the Chinese Government.

“Eight Roads has backed innovative China healthcare companies since 1995,” Daniel Auerbach, senior managing partner Asia of Eight Roads, said in a statement. “The launch of this specialized fund reflects our confidence in the evolution of the China market and forms part of a strategy to more precisely target our healthcare and technology expertise.”

In the past 22 years, the VC firm has invested in more than 100 healthcare companies, over 30 of which are in China. These investments include drug discovery and development firms such as WuXi AppTec, Hua Medicine, Adagene, and biologic manufacturing companies such as Innovent. Eight Roads’ portfolio also includes medical services such as DeltaHealth, Bang Er Orthopedic Hospital, Gushengtang and innovative services that improve the efficiency of medical payment and clinical care like Wanhu Health and Medbanks.

Then there’s OrbiMed, which has closed its third Asia-focused private equity fund, OrbiMed Asia Partners III, LP, with approximately $551 million in capital commitments.

The fund will invest broadly across the Asian healthcare sector, with a focus on growth stage and services-oriented companies in China and India. It will target investments from $10 million to $75 million per company across 15 to 20 opportunities. Also where appropriate, Asia Partners III may co-invest with OrbiMed’s global team to enable substantially larger investments.

“With over half of the world’s patient population, the demand for quality healthcare in Asia still greatly exceeds supply,” said Jonathan Wang, a senior managing director at OrbiMed. “China’s healthcare market is not only growing rapidly, but also becoming a leading center of innovation, and is increasingly integrated with the rest of the world, especially the U.S.”

Previous OrbiMed fund was launched in 2014 with $325 million in capital, targeting drug developers, diagnostics firms and medical device manufacturers in the region.

OrbiMed was founded in 1989, and has over $14 billion in assets under management globally. The company expanded to Asia in 2007 with offices in Mumbai and Shanghai.