Investing at the inflexion point in healthcare innovation

This interview was filmed Wednesday 28 May 2025. 

Hashan De Silva didn’t start out as a fund manager, he started as a medical student. That medical foundation, combined with a stint at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly where he saw dealmaking up close, led him to a simple yet powerful investment thesis: back transformative healthcare companies at the inflexion point of value creation.

That is the premise for the KP Rx Healthcare Opportunities Fund – a collection of high-conviction investments that require deep expertise and precise investments at the moment value creation is about to accelerate.

In this Fund in Focus, De Silva, Founder and Managing Partner at KP Rx, shares the thinking behind his unique strategy, which targets investments in private and listed biotech and medtech companies at a specific point in their evolution. 

“We're looking at biotech companies after human data [trials] and medical device companies closer to regulatory approval”, he explains.

“The goal is to invest in a company that's about three years away from a material event or exit". 

Launched on 30 June 2023, KP Rx is nearing the final close of its fund, with the final opportunity for new investors ending on 30 June 2025.

With a successful first year behind him, De Silva is now focused on deploying capital into what he sees as one of the most attractive funding environments in years - for those with the expertise to navigate it.

To learn more, watch the video above or read the interview summary below. 

INTERVIEW SUMMARY

Deep diligence and selectivity

De Silva’s approach is unapologetically bottom-up. Rather than chase “hot” sectors or themes, KP Rx focuses on identifying individual opportunities with outsized potential. 

“We try actively not to invest in a hot sector because I find that you often overpay in a hot market, and then when it’s time to exit, the market’s not hot anymore,” he says.

Each investment starts with a question: What does success look like, and how do we get there?

From there, De Silva and his team reverse-engineer the resources, skill sets, and capital required, only backing companies that are aligned with that path. 

“If the company doesn’t have it or is not willing to go in that direction, that’s when we pass,” he adds.

A tough market, but full of opportunity

According to De Silva, the funding environment in Australia’s private healthcare market is challenging, but that creates a unique advantage for specialists like KP Rx. 

“Companies just can't get funded,” he says. 

“That allows us to take our time and diligence to whatever granular detail we want, without fear of a competing term sheet.”

Among recent portfolio additions is Inventia, a company 3D printing mini-organoids for drug testing. 

“It's the first time a technology will enable 3D to replace 2D cell culture in high throughput drug screening,” he explains. 

Another is Skin2Neuron, which is developing a cell therapy for Alzheimer’s. 

“If they can show reversal of Alzheimer's disease in five patients… that’s Nobel science,” he says.

Managing risk in a binary world

Biotech investing comes with binary outcomes - trials either succeed or fail - but KP Rx leans into that risk with depth, not diversification. 

“We mitigate through thorough due diligence and concentration,” De Silva says. 

“The more companies you have, the less well you know each of them.”

He cites the example of Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX: NEU), an investment made at his previous fund, which delivered a 20x return after a successful FDA approval. “If you had a 10% position in Neuren, that was material to the portfolio. That’s the kind of impact we’re targeting.”

What’s next for investors?

KP Rx is targeting a 20% net IRR over the life of the fund, roughly equivalent to a 5x money-on-money return. So far, performance is ahead of plan, buoyed by early success in Syntara (ASX: SNT), a listed biotech that tripled following strong Phase 2 trial results. 

“The longer patients take the drug, the better they get, which is the opposite of standard care,” he notes.

For investors joining the fund before 30 June 2025, there's a unique benefit: they can enter at a NAV of one, effectively receiving an uplift from the fund’s existing gains.

Backed by deep sector knowledge, methodical analysis, and an eye for inflexion points, KP Rx is offering a rare gateway into some of healthcare’s most transformative innovations, just as they begin to take flight.

Access to some of Australia's best healthcare opportunities

Karst Peak Rx (KP Rx) is a healthcare investor, backed by Karst Peak Capital, specialising in healthcare and health tech investments in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). Hashan and the team focus on investments in private and early-stage public companies, with an emphasis on biotech, medical devices, diagnostics and healthtech. Find out more.

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