CVS Health announced the launch of CVS Health Ventures, a dedicated corporate venture capital fund that will invest in and partner with high-potential, early-stage companies focused on making health care more accessible, affordable, and simpler. With CVS Pharmacy and Aetna’s venture, CVS Health already has quite a bit of experience investing in digital health and is currently backing more than 20 early-stage companies.
- Enhanced Allocation for more investments: The fund will initially launch with $100 million allocated for investments and will focus on companies with the potential for technology-enabled innovation and disruption in digital health care that is anchored in CVS Health’s core strategy. CVS Health Ventures will build relationships with early-stage companies via investment as well as by offering expertise and insights from CVS Health’s unique perspective.
- Provide Capital to multiple start-ups: “We have deep experience investing in innovative companies,” said Josh Flum, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Strategy & Business Development, CVS Health. “We will build on this experience by providing capital to our start-up and venture partners and helping them scale more rapidly through commercial relationships with our business units. This is an exciting opportunity to accelerate innovation and effectively bring new solutions to the consumer health space.”
- Impact of CVS Health: CVS Health has already made more than 20 direct investments through the CVS and Aetna businesses. These investments have delivered consistently strong returns and partnerships. Current investments include Unite Us, a technology platform that connects health care and social services providers, and LumiraDx, an innovative point-of-care diagnostic platform.
- Digitally heightened solutions: “Consumers deserve a better health experience, one that puts them at the center of cutting-edge, digitally enabled solutions,” said Karen S. Lynch, President and CEO, CVS Health. “Forming CVS Health Ventures will build on our successful track record of scaling innovation and driving change in health care.”
- Program for kidney issues: In 2018, CVS Health initiated a program to develop a device for home dialysis that would be easier to use than currently available devices. The program also included plans to eventually integrate that device into an at-home dialysis service provided by CVS.