OrbiMed

OrbiMed is the largest dedicated healthcare investment firm in the world, managing approximately $20 billion across public equity, private equity, and royalty and credit strategies. Headquartered in New York with offices across San Francisco, Mumbai, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, and Herzliya, the firm employs a team of more than 150 scientific, medical, investment, and operating professionals and invests across the entire global healthcare industry, from seed-stage venture capital through publicly-traded growth and IPO-anchored crossover positions. OrbiMed’s venture capital franchise is one of the deepest in the category, with active portfolio coverage across biopharmaceuticals, life sciences tools, digital health, healthcare services, medical devices, and diagnostics.

The firm operates as a partnership across its three core strategies, with senior managing directors and partners specializing in venture, public equity, and private credit and royalty. On the private investment side, the firm has historically been led by Carl Gordon, Jonathan Silverstein (now departed), Sven Borho, Sam Isaly (founder, now retired), and a deep bench of senior investors. Current senior partners and managing directors include Carl Gordon, who anchors the global private investment franchise; Geoffrey Hsu, who covers life sciences and medtech; Tadd Wessel and Eric Ende on private equity; and a broad bench across geographies including Israel and Asia. The firm also runs an Asian Healthcare Fund and a Royalty and Credit fund, both of which intersect with the venture portfolio for follow-on and structured capital.

The portfolio is enormous and difficult to summarize comprehensively. OrbiMed has invested in over 495 companies with a track record of more than 80 healthcare therapies developed and brought to patients by its venture portfolio companies. Recent and notable exits include ProfoundBio, the antibody-drug conjugate company acquired by Genmab for $1.8 billion. The firm has been an active investor across CRISPR and gene editing, cell therapy, RNA therapeutics, immuno-oncology, rare disease, ophthalmology, and platform biology, with significant cross-border activity in China, India, and Israel.

Check sizes are wide. At Series A and B, OrbiMed typically writes $10 million to $50 million; at Series C and growth, $25 million to $150 million; and the firm can also participate in PIPEs and crossover financings of $50 million to $300 million through its public equity teams. OrbiMed leads at all stages and frequently anchors syndicates alongside peer specialists including Versant, Third Rock, F-Prime, and Vivo Capital. Geographic scope is genuinely global, with active US, European, Israeli, Indian, and Chinese practices.

Founders who should approach OrbiMed are scientific founders with novel therapeutic platforms or assets, repeat biotech operators, devices founders building Class II and III products with a clear FDA pathway, life sciences tools and services founders, and selectively digital health and healthcare services founders with deep clinical wedges. The firm is particularly suited for founders who envision raising substantial capital across multiple rounds and who want a single anchor investor with the capacity to support the company from formation through IPO. Founders building consumer wellness, pure DTC, or non-clinical software without a healthcare wedge should pitch other firms. OrbiMed is also less likely to back companies whose addressable opportunity is small or whose path to scale is unclear.

Entry path runs through warm introductions from portfolio CEOs, scientific advisors, and peer specialist investors. The firm is at JPMorgan Healthcare, BIO, Asia BIO, and the major scientific conferences. Cold inbound through the website is triaged. Diligence is rigorous and partner-driven, with deep technical and clinical reviews, frequently including meetings with OrbiMed’s in-house physicians and scientists, typically four to ten weeks from first meeting to term sheet for novel platforms.

In a pitch, lead with the science, the unmet need, the IP estate, and the clinical or regulatory plan. OrbiMed partners are deeply technical and often hold MD or PhD degrees in relevant disciplines; they will probe your translational data and competitive positioning in detail. Bring credible senior leadership and a clear path from current data to a value-creating clinical or commercial inflection. The firm’s added value is best realized when founders use the full OrbiMed platform: cross-strategy capital from venture through public equity, royalty financing for late-stage assets, and the firm’s deep relationships with public-market investors and pharma partners. Founders building toward IPO scale who want a single global anchor will find OrbiMed one of the most powerful and flexible tier-one partners in healthcare.