ROANOKE, VA, (February 19, 2004) – As part of their commitment to regional economic development, Carilion Health System and the Virginia Tech Foundation have established a private equity/venture capital fund and an investment consortium that will make investments in promising companies willing to initiate operations in the Roanoke and New River Valleys. Approximately $55 million dollars in investment capital will now be available to companies who operate in this region.
Major contributors to the Fund are both the Carilion Health System, a $1+ billion a year integrated health care system, which has spawned the Carilion Biomedical Institute, and Virginia Tech. Both organizations are well connected to Israel through the VIAB and the VITAL (Virginia Israel Tech Alliance) program.
According to Cheryl Valentine, “I am traveling to Israel to identify potential Israeli partners in Life Sciences. This will be a joint effort on both sides of the Ocean, where our investment capital will be directed at commercialization activities in the US for companies that meet our objectives. We have already begun due diligence on several Israeli companies, and believe there are many more that we haven’t been exposed to yet.”
Cheryl Valentine is a Principal at the Carilion Biomedical Institute, where she is responsible for conducting due diligence for potential investments. According to Valentine, “our investments are either financial investment and/or in-kind services provided by our comprehensive Health Care Organization.”
Ms. Valentine earned a BBA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. Prior to joining Carilion, Ms.
Ms. Valentine worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in mergers and acquisitions, due diligence and post merger integration where she served a variety of clients in the energy, consumer products and transportation industries.
For more information:
www.biomedicalinstitute.com
http://www.carilion.com/cvalentine@carilion.com 
