Surprise Turkish Fund Move Into MedTech Via US Acquisition
This article was originally published in PharmAsia News
Executive Summary
OYAK, Turkey’s largest private supplementary pension fund, has stepped into the medical technology industry by acquiring a controlling stake in MicroMedicine, a US-based startup working on blood separation technologies, in a move that has taken observers by surprise.
ISTANBUL – The Turkish pension fund OYAK has announced the completion of an inaugural investment in biomedical technology through the acquisition of a controlling stake in the US-based startup MicroMedicine.
Originally founded in 1961 as a pension fund for officers of the Turkish Armed Forces, OYAK is currently the largest private supplementary pension fund in Turkey and a leading holding group with strategic investments across a number of profitable and growth sectors.
But the move into medtech came as a surprise as the industries where OYAK has traditionally been active include steel (where it owns the largest producer in Turkey), automotive, construction materials, agricultural chemicals, mining, energy and technology.
Among its diversified and generally relatively low-tech interests are the domestic cement and concrete sectors and the global PVC stabilizer industry, and the fund’s consolidated turnover in 2014 was around $7.2bn.
As a group that has never invested in medicine or medtech before, OYAK’s move has surprised the Turkish business world and analysts. MicroMedicine focuses on the development and commercialization of blood cell separation technologies to enable applications in diagnostics and therapeutics, including tissue regeneration, as well as research.
The venture is developing microfluidic technologies that enable the “pristine” separation of blood cells for use in infection imaging and tissue regeneration, and is aiming to bring these to clinical settings.
MicroMedicine was founded by Professor Dr. Mehmet Toner, Dr. Ravi Kapur, and Professor Dr. Ronald Tompkins of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and already has an interdisciplinary collaboration with the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
With the undisclosed investment, OYAK has now become a partner with the three founding scientists and the hospital, which is the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and has the largest hospital-based research program in the US.
According to sources from OYAK, the pension fund conglomerate sees this as an investment to support the commercialization of a new discovery and novel technology. They disclosed that a controlling stake was provided to OYAK in return for investment in the new discoveries of MicroMedicine.
The sources underlined that the fund’s initial investment in biomedical technology will be followed by other similar investments into high-technology sectors, although it is not currently clear whether OYAK will continue its moves into medtech by making other acquisitions.