Mitchell J. Blutt is an American physician-businessman. He is one of the first physicians to play a prominent role on Wall Street[1] by drawing on his medical training to identify investment potential in healthcare companies. He is the founder and CEO of the New York-based healthcare investment firm, Consonance Capital, and a former Executive Partner of J.P. Morgan Partners. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University.
In 1982, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Blutt created his own undergraduate course of study, the precursor to the biological basis of behavior major.[1] As a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (1982) he completed his medical residency at the New York Hospital/Cornell Medical School (1985). He held the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Fellowship at Penn while simultaneously receiving his MBA from Wharton (1987). Blutt was hired in 1987 by what became J.P. Morgan Partners.
From 1987 to 1999, Blutt spent four days at his investment office and one day a week at Cornell University Medical Center to teach and tend to patients. He cites his access to a network of medical professionals whose judgment he trusts as an advantage, and that companies are often reassured when a physician is involved in negotiations for healthcare related investments.[1]
Blutt remains a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. In 2005, he founded Consonance Capital, an investment firm focused on equity investments in the healthcare industry. Consonance Capital went into business in 2005 investing in stocks of small public health-care companies.[2] The hedge fund is managed by Consonance Capital Management. Blutt's original partners in the hedge fund are Dr. Benny Soffer and Kevin Livingston.
Blutt also launched a private equity program managed by Consonance Capital Partners with partners Benjamin Edmands, Stephen McKenna and Nancy-Ann DeParle.[3] Consonance Capital Partners invests in privately owned healthcare companies. The PE fund completed its initial financing at $500 million[4] and raised its second fund at $856 million in May 2020.[5]
Consonance Capital has public market and private equity professionals immersed in the health sector full-time.[2]
Blutt has held memberships in dozens of associations and committees and served on numerous boards, among them The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which is credited with innovations that streamlined the funding process for scientific research.[6] He has been the subject of interviews and profiles in the press, is a speaker and has contributed articles to scholarly journals as well as columns on “Intelligent Investing” for Forbes.[7] He is a former trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and of Penn Medicine, the medical school and health system of Penn, of the Brearley School and was on past corporate boards of directors, including Cardinal Health and Fisher Scientific.[8] Currently, he is a member of the New York Academy of Medicine; the Board of Advisors, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania; the Board of Advisors of The Wharton School; and the Board of Fellows and Executive Committee of Weill Cornell Medicine, the medical school of Cornell University. Dr. Blutt also serves on the board and Executive Committee of The Commonwealth Fund,[9] a health policy research foundation,[9] where he is also the Chair of the Investment Committee. He is also The Chairman of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) External Advisory Board.[10] Blutt's philanthropy includes multimillion-dollar contributions to Penn; in 2007 his support was recognized with the School of Medicine's Alumni Service Award.[1] In 2018 Blutt was awarded the Alumni Award of Merit, the highest award given by the University of Pennsylvania.[11] Blutt has also supported music at Penn through endowing the Blutt Singer Songwriter Symposium, which has supported Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Graham Nash, Rufus Wainwright, Questlove, Nona Hendryx,[12] and Japanese Breakfast.[13] In addition, Blutt and his wife have gifted $4.5 million to the University of Pennsylvania and three presidential professorships in each of the three schools he attended at Penn: the School of Arts and Sciences, the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School. Presidential professorships support faculty from underrepresented minority groups. [14]
Blutt married Margo Krody, a former New York City Ballet dancer, in 1993. They have three children: Jill Blutt, a musical performer and artist;[15] Eliza Blutt, a former dancer with New York City Ballet and student; and Emerson Blutt, a student and fencer.[16]