
For decades, breakthroughs in public health have often depended on public and philanthropic funding. But as the pace of scientific discovery increases, investors such as Adjuvant Capital are demonstrating that private capital, applied with purpose, can also deliver outsized impact.
“People hear ‘venture capital’ and think of Silicon Valley,” said Glenn Rockman, founder and managing partner of Adjuvant Capital. “But it’s really about building a portfolio of high-risk investments that can deliver both financial and social returns.”
On the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings, Devex and Adjuvant Capital held a session with Rockman to explore how venture capital tools can help bring promising but often overlooked public health technologies to market. The conversation highlighted how mission-driven capital can bridge gaps in traditional financing and bring transformative health technologies to the people who need them most.
Seeking out hidden value
Adjuvant Capital was founded in 2018 to direct venture capital tools toward overlooked challenges — with historical experience spanning conditions such as postpartum hemorrhage, cholera, rabies, and Group B strep. These investments “should make money on the whole” if they are safe and effective, Rockman explained. But they’re often “overlooked by the rest of the industry because they’re just not as ‘sexy’ as investing in a guaranteed cure for Alzheimer’s or ending breast cancer.”
Examples from the Adjuvant team’s experience illustrate the dual-market model that defines the firm’s approach, a financing strategy that combines high-margin sales in wealthier markets with affordable access in lower-income settings. For example, a company developing better interventions for maternal health conditions, which are typically geography-agnostic, can sell high-margin products in high-income markets while accelerating the availability of these products in lower-income regions at affordable prices. On the other hand, challenges that do typically discriminate based on geography and socioeconomic status rely on high volume and low margins — but can succeed commercially when centralized procurement and regulatory harmonization are in place.
From lab to market
Rockman described Adjuvant’s investment approach as a “filtering process,” starting with a broad landscape of promising technologies and narrowing in on those with both impact potential and financial viability.
“[We] find basically the entire universe of technologies that address an overlooked public health challenge — whether it’s a diagnostic or a vaccine, or a treatment. And then you very quickly whittle that down to what in this pool is investable,” he explained. “It is science in a certain sense, but ... it does require some judgment.”
Supporting social enterprises that can succeed over the long term involves balancing scientific promise with practical execution, including partnerships with global procurement mechanisms such as UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
“What you need is a nerd like someone from my team who happens to care about public health and knows how to travel the corners of the NIH and the Gates Foundation and the funders in Geneva, and put the puzzle pieces together to get a deal done,” he explained. “You need to ensure that your safe and effective product gets in front of the right audience.”
Blending purpose and profit
While traditional investment tools aren’t always designed for global health, new financing models are emerging.
Rockman noted the promise of blended finance — efforts to protect part of the downside risk or incentivize pooled procurement. These structures, he added, are critical to scaling innovation in areas where conventional investors hesitate.
Yet Rockman also emphasized that impact investing builds on, rather than replaces, public and philanthropic foundations. “Aid is an essential part of this, whether you see it or not, ” he said, “You just need to think about the big picture and be somewhat bold — and humble at the same time — in how you approach that, yeah, a lot of investment capital can cherry-pick great deals, but they didn't just fall off the tree. The government and nonprofits had to kind of ‘water the acorn to grow’ in the first place.”
As global health faces constrained budgets and complex challenges, Rockman emphasized a measured but optimistic perspective: “Venture capital and private investment isn’t a solution to all problems. What you need is specialization and the willingness of funders and finance experts and global health specialists to come together. It’s a lot of work,” he admitted. “But I have a huge amount of optimism that the world really cares about that.”
Watch Catalyzing breakthrough health solutions: Mission-driven capital in action on YouTube.