How we are investing in health innovation to drive health impact

At Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, our mission is to build the foundations of a society that helps everyone stay healthier, for longer. This includes striving to reduce health inequalities – unfair, unjust and preventable differences which lead to disproportionally negative health outcomes for some communities and people. Health outcomes are as much about where people are born, grow up, live, work and age as they are about the medicines they receive. Health inequalities are rooted deep within our society and, in the current social and economic climate, are widening. This results in earlier deaths, lost years of healthy life and significant economic costs for society.

As part of our commitment to improve health outcomes we are aiming to invest £100m through our impact investment strategy by 2026. This is part of our wider endowment strategy to pursue dual objectives of positive financial return alongside health impact.

As part of our impact investing journey, we are committed to sharing our progress and learnings. Since 2018, we have been investing in funds across a range of sectors that we consider to be best aligned with our health objectives. We are doing this by investing in funds that are focused on key things that we know effect health such as quality housing, environmental health, community infrastructure, education and employment. We are also investing in funds that are at the forefront of science and technology, looking to deliver breakthrough treatments and improve healthcare delivery and clinical outcomes.

In the last six months, we have added two new funds to our impact portfolio: Women’s and Children’s Health Technology Fund and AXA IM Global Health Fund, two funds aiming to address health inequalities through greater access to medical products and services.

The Women’s and Children’s Health Technology Fund is a female led fund, launched by the team at Cross Border Impact Ventures. They have a particular focus on women, children and adolescent health and will be looking to tackle health inequalities through investment in technology solutions targeting the primary and proximate causes of poor health for women, children and/or adolescents.

AXA IM Global Health Fund was recently launched by an experienced health investment team at AXA IM Alts and aims to address health inequalities through investment in accessible medical devices. Through this work, they’ll be placing emphasis on products costs, simplicity and durability.

These funds are investing in healthcare companies with a high-income country footprint to begin, with a view of scaling into low- and middle-income countries. Over time the hope is this will support greater access to essential medical supplies globally. Our investment in these funds is another step in our impact investing journey and commitment to investing in a society where everyone stays happy and healthier for longer.