Easton's Investments: Impacts on SocietyEaston targets companies with paradigm-shifting products or services to treat fundamental unmet medical needs. The appeal, rationale, and business propositions underlying these investments must be simple and compelling: products to cure a currently incurable disease, treat a currently untreatable (or poorly treated) illness, extend life by years, at a reasonable cost, or dramatically reduce healthcare costs. This strategy ensures that our portfolio companies flourish in all economic environments.
The attractive returns generated by Easton’s portfolio companies result from the fact that the markets realize and value that these companies provide critical goods and services that fundamentally transform human lives. For example, Easton was the lead investor in Cardiovascular Systems (Nasdaq: CSII) which invented a novel peripheral arterial disease treatment that has prevented more than an estimated 50,000-100,000 amputations in the U.S. in just the few years since its introduction. Promedior, another Easton-backed company, has developed the first drug that has demonstrated an ability to combat not only the symptoms of myelofibrosis, but also the basic disease itself, offering the promise of substantial increases in survival rates for this terrible hematological cancer. Other notable examples include: (1) Bluebird bio (Nasdaq: BLUE), a company developing a gene therapy that has shown an ability to treat and potentially cure Beta-Thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder, and sickle cell anemia; (2) Resolve, a developer of a breakthrough therapy for Lupus Erythematosus, a devastating autoimmune illness affecting 5 million people (mostly women) globally; (3) Atentiv, which has launched a non-pharmaceutical method to treat attention deficit disorder; (4) Perceptimed, a company that has designed an inexpensive system to prevent the millions of medication dispensing mistakes that occur annually in the US; and (5) WellTrack One, which provides a system to facilitate preventive care for the millions of Medicare patients neglecting their health. |