#Twenty25 - Funding the future of health tech - Part 11/20 Interview with Tanja Dowe, Angelini Ventures

There is an investing gap right now for addressing health discrepancies - We have identified areas where the burden of disease is high, but investment is low which needs to be rebalanced.

Ian Coyne: For 2025, where do you think the interesting investments will go in digital health and health tech?

Tanja Dowe: I see two main areas: convergence and addressing discrepancies between burden of disease and investment amounts.

On convergence, what I mean by that is companies capturing data flows and utilizing multimodal data to build platforms that improve patient outcomes and save costs.

For example, hybrid care models or tech-enabled services that integrate various data streams to create comprehensive solutions. The goal is to use AI not just for workflow efficiency but to enhance health outcomes and maintain high-quality care. This approach aligns with value-based metrics, focusing on both cost savings and patient benefits. 

Secondly, there is an investing gap right now for addressing health discrepancies -  We have identified areas where the burden of disease is high, but investment is low which needs to be rebalanced.

For instance, conditions like depression, COPD and certain heart diseases are under-invested despite their significant impact on life quality and expectancy. Investing in these areas may be riskier due to the complexity of the diseases, but the potential value of successful solutions is substantial. This strategy involves taking calculated risks to address unmet needs in healthcare. 

Ian: Beyond 2025, what do you think will be the important transformations in health tech?

Tanja: AI, particularly generative AI, holds huge promise. However, we need to ensure that we go beyond workflow solutions, to truly improve patient outcomes. The big challenges in healthcare are the shortage of care personnel, soaring costs, and an aging population, none of which is new or unique to any health system and none of which can be solved only with workflow solutions.

We need impactful investments that improve patient outcomes and community health. We need to embrace using AI for clinical decision support, diagnostics, and treatment selection both in clinician facing and patient facing tools.

This includes ensuring that AI tools are safe, effective, and used appropriately in clinical settings. Regulatory frameworks need to evolve to keep pace with technological advancements, enabling the safe and effective integration of AI into healthcare. 

This transformation will come hand in hand with putting tools in the patients’ hands to monitor and manage their conditions better, e.g. adjusting treatment within a safe framework based on monitoring data, something that we are not used to in today’s healthcare at all.

Ian: If you had a magic wand and could change anything, what would that look like?

Tanja: I’m going to take a very different perspective here and use the magic wand to improve diversity and data driven approach in investment teams. Investors have a massive societal responsibility in building the future of healthcare through the start-ups that they support.

Removing human bias and avoiding groupthink are critical in a complex, risk based investing world. Using data-driven tools and fostering diverse perspectives can help us make better investment decisions and build a more innovative and inclusive healthcare system.

What does that look like in reality? Leveraging data analytics to inform investment decisions can help identify the most promising innovations and ensure that investments align with market needs and disease burdens. This approach reduces human bias and can improve the accuracy of investment decisions. 

When it comes to the human element of investing, building diverse teams in investment firms can enhance decision-making by bringing different perspectives and experiences to the table. This helps avoid groupthink and fosters innovation.

I am proud to say that at Angelini Ventures, we are a frontrunner in using data analytics for sourcing and due diligence and we have intentionally built a diverse team to improve our conversations and decisions, ensuring we invest in impactful and innovative solutions. 

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Tanja Dowe, Managing Director at Angelini Ventures

Tanja is a Managing Director at Angelini Ventures. Prior to joining Angelini Ventures, Tanja was the CEO of Debiopharm Innovation Fund in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she built a portfolio of 17 digital health and data driven R&D tech companies, and consolidated a legacy portfolio of diagnostics investments.

Before her career in start-up investments, Tanja was the Managing Partner of Innomedica Ltd, a boutique strategy and transaction consulting company in life sciences, and a founder-CEO of a market research agency BioSolutions INT.

During her career, Tanja has worked with over 90 healthtech companies globally, leading to broad experience in innovative product development, commercial strategies, and building winning teams. Tanja is an experienced board member and chairwoman with a track record of successful M&A exits.

She holds an MSc in Applied Microbiology and Biochemistry from Helsinki University of Technology (nowadays Aalto University).

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