Israel's powerful high-tech capabilities in such sectors as big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are achieving a revolutionary impact on the med-tech sector. These capabilities are resulting in achievements in such areas as gene engineering that once seemed like science fiction.



Pharmaceutical companies, which have an urgent need to find new molecules and develop and commercialize them into marketable products are able to leverage big data and AI to shorten these processes, saving money and time and the amount of failed clinical trials.
In addition, big data and AI can be used to spot patterns in ostensibly healthy patients for early detection and even prevention of diseases by analyzing blood and other samples as well as genetic testing. In this respect, Israel is unique in that the country's health funds have digital records for almost the entire country dating back for nearly 30 years, which can potentially provide a wealth of data for researching and discerning potential diagnostic patterns. Start-Up Nation Central observes, Digital Health is primarily concerned with making medicine more personal, continuous, accurate, and data-driven, utilizing smart mobile applications, supported by advanced wearable and sensor technologies to empower patients by providing them with highly-efficient and accessible health management tools. Using these tools, healthcare professionals together with the patients themselves can variously monitor, predict, diagnose and treat a broad range of health conditions. In the healthcare business space, health analytics platforms, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, are dramatically improving medical decisions and clinical workflow. With a unique skill set of capabilities in information, communication, mobile, and cyber technologies, Israel has an unparalleled advantage in health analytics, complemented by more than 25 years of expertise in implementing health IT, electronic medical records, and business analytics.

The number of digital health companies has grown rapidly in recent years with startups operating in such fields as digital therapeutics, remote monitoring, assistive devices, diagnostics, patient engagement, clinical workflow and decision support. According to Start-Up Nation Central, $786.5 million was invested in Israeli digital health startups between 2014 and 2017. In 2018, the Israeli government further boosted investment in digital health by providing a $33 million grant through the Israel Innovation Authority to three healthcare giants – Medtronic, GE Healthcare and Change Healthcare to set up digital health development centers in Israel. This is part of a $260 million government budget for boosting the digital health sector including drug development and researching the country's digitalized health records.


This sector has more than 500 startups and there has even already been an exit - US company Allscripts acquired Israel's dbMotion, which has pioneered computerized healthcare information software systems, for $235 million.
Some of the $222 million VC fund established by the government, and managed by OrbiMed Advisors as well as OrbiMed's second $307 million have been invested in digital healthcare companies. Portfolio startups include telemedicine diagnostics company Tyto Care, big data patient analytics company Treato and MDClone, which creates synthetic medical records, based on real data with interactive anonymization.
Israel's largest med-tech venture capital fund is aMoon with $860 million under management in its two funds. aMoon's digital health portfolio companies include AI computational biology and advanced molecular tools company BioLojic Design, Medial EarlySign, which develops a predictive care engine driven by medical data, Igentify, which imports genomic molecular results directly from sophisticated laboratory testing equipment and analyzes it using a state of the art genomic database and algorithms, and Ibex Medical Analytics, which has developed an AI-driven diagnostics system that helps pathologists deliver more efficient, metric-driven, objective and accurate diagnoses.

Other aMoon portfolio companies include Zebra Medical Vision, which uses deep learning to teach software to automatically analyze medical imaging data from clinical findings, and DayTwo, which develops software that provides personalized nutrition to enable people to live healthier lives and maintain normal blood sugar levels.
Another Israeli company with a portfolio of life science companies is Clal Biotechnology Industries (CBI) (TASE: CBI), controlled by Clal industries, which is itself controlled by US company Access Industries owned by Len Blavatnik. CBI’s portfolio includes two digital health companies: FDNA, which focuses on AI-based phenol-typing and Sight Diagnostics, which uses advanced computer vision and machine learning technology in the field of blood diagnostics.

Israeli digital health startups that have recently completed major financing rounds include AI medical imaging company AIDoc, which raised $27 million, AI surgical platform company Theator, which raised $3 million and care delivery financing software company TailorMed, which raised $6 million. KHealth, which compares users to those with similar symptoms and medical histories before providing a diagnosis, raised $25 million, and Emedgene, which provides solutions that interpret genetic tests automatically, raised $6 million.
In the field of medical cybersecurity, Medigate, which secures IoT medical devices, raised $15 million and Cynerio, which also secures medical devices raised $7 million.