Bruce Robertson will join the Boston-based firm as a managing director on its healthcare team. Formerly a managing director and senior advisor following more than two decades at H.I.G. Capital, Robertson has also held seats on the boards of Apollo Endosurgery, Augmedics, CardioFocus, Exagen, Iconic Therapeutics and RxSight. His work will focus on sourcing investments and evaluating technologies, as well as partnering with management teams to help build their businesses.
While THL has had a history of successful investments in this sector — notably its ownership of Fisher Scientific, prior to the 2006 acquisition that yielded today’s Thermo Fisher Scientific — the majority of its healthcare portfolio has focused on healthcare providers, with $8.7 billion in capital deployed.
Now THL aims to rededicate its efforts on the product side and target companies with enterprise values between $250 million and $3 billion, including potential carve-outs from larger medtechs looking to divest established businesses across a wide range of specialities.
“They and I view medical devices as a significant opportunity right now,” Robertson said in an interview. “One of the themes that I’ve embraced for a long time, and I know THL does as well, is that the winning formula in healthcare is products that can improve patient outcomes and have the potential to lower overall costs for the system.”
“Long gone are the days where a new product comes out, a physician loves it, and they tell their hospital to buy it,” he added. “It’s all very cost-centric now, and medical products have the ability to increase efficiencies across all of healthcare.”
Another opportunity for the firm could be buying out companies that have struggled following the wave of IPOs and SPAC deals seen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I think there’s 25 or 30 public medtech companies trading below 12 times EBITDA. Some of those may be interesting,” Robertson said. “The other thing that THL has done very successfully over the years is acquiring a platform company and then doing add-on acquisitions.”
THL has purchased about 30 healthcare companies, while supporting more than 170 tuck-in deals. Earlier this year the firm closed its tenth equity fund, raising $6.35 billion in capital.
THL has been also working to drive the adoption of artificial intelligence programs across its portfolio. That included assessing every company’s AI usage across the whole firm, not just within the healthcare sector, with the goal of improving top-line revenues and business efficiencies.
“And these are not necessarily technology companies per se,” Robertson said. “A service provider to people with autism, for example, was able to do prior authorizations through AI.”
“On the medical product side…we’re going to be very attentive not only to how the companies have embraced AI to date, but how we at THL — with the resources we have developed around AI — can help them take their harnessing of AI to the next level.”
