The digital health sector is one of the most promising areas in terms of global growth, and is expected to grow significantly by 2024, reaching a market size of over $200 billion globally.
Israel seems to be a major player in this ecosystem: its share of investment has grown significantly between 2014 to 2019, from 1.5% of global investments in digital health to 4.5%, while the country’s population represents about 0.1% of the global population.
There is a wide range of both traditional and non-traditional players aiming to penetrate the market, each with its own unique strategic goals, R&D, deployment strategies and channels to the healthcare market. One thing is common to all - they're all looking for the next big thing in digital health, and seek to incorporate innovation in the most impactful and efficient way.
Israel’s digital ecosystem offers a fertile ground for a wide variety of players with substantially different needs to develop their digital health open innovation strategy.
The ecosystem has several key components:
• Over 550 active digital health start-ups from a wide variety of digital health segments, half of them at post-product phase
• High-quality, community based healthcare system, which offers a unique set of 25 yearsold digital databases, as well as beta sites and innovation hubs
• Mature medical device, pharma and tech industries with global business know-how
• Advanced AI, cyber-security and additional computer sciences and life science skills
• Extensive support from VCs, associations, NGO’s and the government These components combined offer global players a relatively low risk – high reward environment, through access to a high-quality innovation deal flow and fast, cost effective R&D and clinical trials validation cycles.
Many market leaders have already established a significant presence in Israel, among them: Medtronic, Philips, GE Healthcare & Change Healthcare, as described in the case studies section at the end of the paper.
We hope this paper will shed light on Israel’s ‘digital health promise’, and help global players eying the field to understand their opportunities and to establish and grow their presence in Israel.