Hercules to Highlight Growing Importance Of Debt Financing at Healthcare Symposium

Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc., a leading specialty finance company providing growth capital to venture capital-backed technology and life science companies, announced that Parag Shah, Senior Managing Director and Group Head, Life Sciences, will be presenting at The Deal’s Healthcare Symposium later this week.

Mr. Shah will be participating on the panel, Creative, Sustainable Financing Techniques, at 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday, March 21 at The Westin New York at Times Square. The event is a one-day symposium designed to highlight the strategies and perspectives of the leading investors and dealmakers who are having significant success in the biotechnology, drug discovery and medical device sectors.

Mr. Shah brings significant biotechnology and finance experience and expertise to the panel and, in particular, will add insight into venture debt financing and its role within traditional venture capital financing for life science companies.

"Venture debt or growth capital financing was not utilized broadly by life science companies 10 to 15 years ago," Mr. Shah says. "The evolution of the investment model has come to include debt investing as a supplementary method for early stage, mid-stage private and small-cap public life science companies seeking additional less-dilutive financing. As such, it now represents an important alternative financing means for companies irrespective of where they are in their lifecycle."

Mr. Shah notes that companies use Hercules’ venture debt financing for specific purposes, such as a complement to raising private or public equity capital. Recently, he says there has been an increase in life science companies using venture debt to fund the acquisition of intellectual property or technology, ongoing clinical trials and, ultimately, product launches.