In the 18 years since Israel's first BIOMED conference, the country's life science industry has consolidated its position as one of the leading global centers of R&D and marketable innovative ideas in biotech, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. In addition, the emergence of digital health in recent years has enhanced Israel's attractiveness in med-tech. The country's big data, AI and machine learning capabilities can dramatically cut costs in drug discovery and development. These capabilities can also assist in early detection and prevention of illness by spotting patterns in a patient's digital records – Israel is unique in having medical digital records stretching back 25 years.

With international healthcare and pharmaceutical giants looking for product innovation for future growth, Israel has seen substantial investments in the biomed sector in the past few years. This includes major acquisitions of Israeli companies such as that of Medtronic's $1.4 billion acquisition of Mazor Robotics, a record exit for Israel's industry, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp acquiring NeuroDerm, a CNS drug developer, for $1.1 billion and Edward Lifesciences acquisition of Valtech Cardio for $990 million. With more than 1,200 companies operating in Israel’s life science industry and some 100 new startups added each year, the sector is flourishing. Despite the early stage of many of the companies; more than one third are already generating revenues. Ms. Alon says, "Israel is certainly the place to look for medical innovation. In addition to our traditional strengths in medical devices and drug development, our digital health capabilities are making R&D cheaper and making new developments possible that once we were only able to dream about."

This year's conference has three co-chairpersons:
Ruti Alon, Founder and CEO Medstrada. She founded Israel Life Science Industry (ILSI), which subsequently merged with IATI, and was its Chair since its inception in 2005. She is a former General Partner at Pitango Venture Capital.
Ora Dar, Ph.D., Israel Innovation Authority member of the leading team of the National Personal Medicine Initiative and the National research oriented Genomic-Clinical Database.
Nissim Darvish, M.D. Ph.D., Senior Managing Director at OrbiMed Israel, which manages two venture capital funds investing in Israel’s biopharma and med-tech.
The Israeli annual Biomed conference is one of the largest events outside of the US. Last year's conference and exhibition attracted over 6,000 senior executives, scientists and engineers including 1,000 participants from 45 countries, and more than 4,500 one-on-one meetings.
Global industry leaders and investors see Israel’s biomedical sector, with its broad range of products and technologies, combined with the country’s spirit of entrepreneurship and academic workforce, as a valuable center of innovation and profitable investments. This is reflected in the top international figures attending and addressing the annual BIOMED conference and exhibition in Tel Aviv.
Among the speakers this year is Israeli-born Arie Belldegrun who in August sold Kite Pharma to Gilead Sciences for a whopping $11.9 billion. The company developed a novel cancer immunotherapy treatment. Other keynote speakers include Johnson & Johnson Chief Medical Science & Technology Officer Bruce Rosengard, Paul Biondi, SVP Head of Business Development Bristol Myers-Squibb and Philip Nelson, Director of Engineering at Google Research, Troy Cox, CEO Foundation Medicine and finally, Francois Maisonrouge, senior Managing Director at Evercore Inc. Keynote speakers at the focused Tracks are experts in their fields from global corporates, such as Medimmune/Astra Zeneca, Roche, MSD, Eli Lily, and Novartis.

This year's conference will revolve around nine tracks that encompass many of the hottest topics in medical technology and biopharma today: Gene Editing and Gene Therapy: The Next Frontier in Human Health; Deep Diving: The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health in Medicine; Personalized Medicine and Digital Health: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead; Transformative Cancer Therapies; Tango of the Two: Academia and Industry; Prevention and Rehabilitation: Should the Underdog Begin Barking?; New Modalities of Cell Therapies: Revolutionizing the Way We Treat Diseases; Disruptive and Advanced Medical Devices; Cannabis’ Therapeutic Promise: Hope or Hype?
The Conference will include a major emphasis on the shift in medicine from cure to prevention as well as the concern for quality of life when extending peoples' lives and the role that rehabilitation can play in improving the functional difficulties associated with ageing.
In summary, the three Co-Chairpersons are highly enthusiastic about the conference and its content this year. They are cautiously optimistic about the outlook for the industry, its on-going innovation, maturing process and successful exits.