Medtronic, IBM Watson Join Forces With Israel VCs for Digital Health

A partnership of four organizations that includes medtech giant Medtronic has been awarded a tender for a life sciences incubator in Haifa, Israel, with the aim of advancing digital medicine.

IBM Watson Tech, Pitango Venture Capital and Rambam MedTech make up the rest of the team that will establish the incubator, which will focus on, among other areas, telemedicine, wearable and implantable diagnostic sensors, advanced diagnostics, personalized medicine and medical devices that interact with the web.

“Digital medicine heralds a revolution in how people will receive medical services.

“We face a number of commercial and technological challenges, which demand complex integration of different disciplines,” says Dan Schwartzman, director of the new incubator, in a Rambam statement.

The incubator will be in a new Life Sciences Park that will include five buildings, with the main center scheduled for completion at the end of the year.

The tender is part of a fourth round of competitive procedures for selecting franchisees for an incubator to benefit the northern part of the country, according to a statement from Israel’s Ministry of Economy.

The incubator is part of a program administered by the Office of the Chief Scientist within Israel’s Ministry of Economy. Established in 1991, the goal of the Technological Incubators Program is to develop ideas into viable startup companies that can raise money from private investors.

Currently, there are 20 incubators in Israel. — Elizabeth Hollis