Veteran tech executive Vern Davenport, who left Medfusion early last year after serving as CEO, is a new partner with Raleigh life science investment firm NovaQuest Capital Management.

The North Hills-based group also is looking to raise a new fund worth $1.5 billion. If NovaQuest hits that target it would double the amount of capital it has under management.

Davenport joins the NovaQuest team led by Ron Wooten, Jeff Edwards, Guy Petrelli, John Bradley and Michael Sorensen.

“We are proud to have an accomplished private equity leadership team in place. It is exciting to deepen the capabilities of NovaQuest,” said Wooten, who is the managing partner and chief investment officer, of Davenport’s addition.

“.We have assembled a very experienced team with both healthcare investing and operational expertise, and we look forward to their contributions to our portfolio companies.”

Davenport joins the firm as a partner. He has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare technology firms.

In late 2013, Davenport joined the management team at Cary-based Medfusion after that company had been reacquired by founder Steve Malik. He also was a member of the board but left the company just over a year later.

Earlier in his career, Davenport was chair and CEO of MedQuest. That company was sold. Davenport also has worked at Allscripts and Misys Healthcare as well as 11 years at IBM. He earned his MBA and undergraduate degrees at East Carolina.

New fund

The news that NovaQuest is raising a new fund came Friday in a securities filing.

NovaQuest is seeking investors for its NovaQuest Pharma Opportunities Fund V. Its fourth fund, which was launched in 2015, raised $850 million, notes Chris Roush of North Carolina Business News Wire.

NovaQuest was formed in 2000 to invest in life sciences and health care companies. The firm already manages over $1.4 billion in investments through two ways — biopharma investments and private equity deals.

On the biopharma side, the company likes product-based investments in late-stage clinical and commercial biopharma programs. It has invested in companies such as Pharmaxis, Hospira and ProStrakan.

On the private equity side, NovaQuest looks for investments in companies with between $20 million and $100 million in revenue and that are cash flow positive.

The SEC filing was signed by John Bradley, a founding partner of NovaQuest.

Bradley has nearly 20 years of experience in the health care industry and 30 years of overall experience in finance. He served as senior vice president of the NovaQuest business unit of Quintiles, where he negotiated complex structured transactions, managed asset portfolios and directed the day-to-day finances of NovaQuest.

As senior vice president of Quintiles’ Corporate Development Group, he directed a number of strategic transactions in acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, strategic sourcing and debt issuances.

NovaQuest split from Quintiles in 2010.