Today we’re announcing two new investments: SafelyYou and Rune Labs. Both partnerships are based on a core thesis at Eclipse — Healthcare Infrastructure — an investment focus based on the insight that science and technology move faster than their requisite infrastructure.
We’ve seen this dynamic hold true across many industries, such as artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and transportation. Healthcare is no exception. For example, during the recent COVID pandemic, vaccines were developed long before the manufacturing and supply chain were able to deliver them to clinics around the globe.
This same dynamic is unfolding broadly across our healthcare system. For instance, novel science developments in neuromodulation and drug delivery across the blood-brain-barrier are promising treatment paths for many neurodegenerative diseases, but we have very few ways to objectively measure their efficacy. Rune Labs is building the first precision-medicine platform able to convert these scientific developments into highly efficacious, widespread care.
In gerontology, falls are a large and growing problem: Fall death rates among adults age 65 and older increased about 30 percent from 2009 to 2018, and they cost the U.S. healthcare system $50 billion annually. Technical solutions for detecting and preventing these falls exist but are currently not delivered in a cost-effective or useful manner. SafelyYou has built the first holistic platform for solving this problem, incorporating world-class computer vision with firsthand clinical knowledge to make a meaningful impact in the reduction of falls across the aging population.
Both Rune Labs and SafelyYou are building products for a world where life-extending innovations (i.e. antibiotics) are introducing a new set of challenges for the healthcare system. The population over the age of 65 will grow by 17 million over the next 10 years. As our population ages, demand will increase for new methods to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative conditions. While curing these illnesses will require a multi-faceted approach and many scientific discoveries, companies like SafelyYou and Rune Labs are building companies to address these challenges and make an impact on patients’ lives today.
Through our Healthcare Infrastructure thesis, we aim to partner with companies that incorporate existing technologies with novel innovations; and apply these solutions to develop and deliver the future of healthcare.
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