Garheng Kong, MD, PhD, MBA
Garheng founded HealthQuest Capital in 2012 to improve people’s lives through improving healthcare on a significant scale. His vision was to build a best-in-class team of the highest talent and integrity to work with outstanding entrepreneurs to transform healthcare through high growth companies while generating outsized risk adjusted returns for investors.
A physician, scientist, and engineer by training, Garheng has over two decades of experience investing in innovative healthcare companies with a long list of successes (34 IPO/M&A exits). He has represented HealthQuest on the boards of Ajax I, Ajax II, Ajax III, Alcresta, Avedro, Avizia, BardyDx, Castle Biosciences, CleanSlate, Etairos, ENT Specialty Partners, Everly Health, HealthChannels, Lunit, Magnolia Medical, Nomad Health, Perspectum, Pulmonx, Somatus, Spirox, TigerConnect, Trice Medical, Venus Concept, and CareMetx/VirMedica.
Some of his notable past successes include IPO’s with Alimera (ALIM), AmWell (AMWL), Applied Genetic Technology Corp. (AGTC), Avedro (AVDR), Castle Biosciences (CSTL), Cempra (CEMP), Histogenics (HSGX), Lunit (A32813), Proteon (PRTO), Pulmonx (LUNG), StrongBridge (SBBP), TransEnterix (TRXC) and Venus Concept (VERO). His companies going on to successful M&A transactions include: Ajax I (Medtronic), Alcresta (Linden), Aldagen (Cytomedix), Athenix (Bayer), Avedro (Glaukos), Avizia (AmWell), BardyDx (Hillrom), Calibra Medical (J&J), CareMetx (General Atlantic), Cellective (AstraZeneca), NovaMin (GlaxoSmithKline), Salveo Specialty Pharmacy (United Health), SARCode (Shire), Serenex (Pfizer), Spirox (Stryker), Strongbridge Biopharma (Xeris) and Virmedica (CareMetx).
Garheng’s interests and industry footprint are broad as he serves as the Lead Independent Director of LabCorp (LH), and serves on the board of Xeris Biopharma (XERS), Be The Match, Duke University Medical Center, Dell Children’s Foundation, UT President’s Commercial Advisory Board, and the Austin Healthcare Council, and has served as Chairman on nine boards. He is an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow, Kauffman Fellows Mentor, and member of YPO. He was named a Top 25 Healthcare Investor of 2022 by GrowthCap, and a Top 30 Asian American and Pacific Islander Board Member in the U.S. by BoardProspects in 2023.
Garheng received undergraduate degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Biological Sciences from Stanford, while on an athletic scholarship. He then earned a MD, PhD and MBA from Duke University, graduating at the top of his class in each instance. His early career included stints at GlaxoSmithKline, McKinsey and a medical device start-up, TherOx, before joining Intersouth Partners and then Sofinnova Investments. He is married to his physician wife (a board certified cardiac electrophysiologist), has 3 children, and was a nationally ranked volleyball player (and avid “foodie”).
