Dr. Richard Torres
When I transitioned from clinical practice to venture investing fifteen years ago, colleagues questioned whether I was abandoning patient care. I've come to believe the opposite: that bringing clinical perspective to capital allocation is one of the highest-leverage ways to improve patient outcomes.
What Clinicians See
A clinician evaluating a healthcare startup asks different questions than a pure financial investor. Not just "Is this technology novel?" but "Would I use this with my patients?" Not just "Is the market large?" but "Does this fit into clinical workflows?"
These questions matter enormously for predicting success. The healthcare industry is littered with technically impressive products that failed because they didn't account for how medicine is actually practiced—the time pressures, the liability concerns, the organizational politics.
"The gap between a working prototype and a product that physicians will actually adopt is where most healthcare startups die. Clinical insight helps you see that gap."
Pattern Recognition
Clinical experience builds a powerful form of pattern recognition. We've seen countless patient presentations, treatment responses, and disease trajectories. This allows us to quickly assess whether a new diagnostic or therapeutic truly addresses a critical need or is merely a marginal improvement.
It also helps us identify the 'red flags'—the scientific claims that sound too good to be true, the clinical trial designs with obvious flaws, or the market assumptions that ignore the realities of healthcare economics.