Israel leads the world in patents for medical devices on a per capita
basis according to data presented at the inaugural session of ILSI,
Israel Life Science Industry, a new umbrella organization. Ruti Alon,
one of ILSI`s founders, pointed out that one of the reasons for
founding the organization was to be able to gather accurate date that
could be used to present a clear picture of the industry`s assets.
Her findings corroborate the notion that Israel is a leading player
in the world life science arena, especially in the cardiovascular
area.
Israel has 466 life science companies, with 80 percent of them
founded in the last ten years. Since 2000 about 50 companies have
been founded every year.
The industry remains in its formative stage with about thirty percent
of the companies in the seed stage and only 20 percent in the
clinical stage.
The biggest area of industry focus is cardiovascular with 67
companies active in this area.
More than half of the industry is comprised of medical device
companies (54 percent) while biotech companies make up 21 percent.
About a half of the medical device companies focus on therapeutic
devices with the leading applications being in cardiovascular,
oncology, neurology and neurodegenerative.
Most of the revenue generating biotech companies sell diagnostic kits
or research equipment.
Pharmaceutical companies comprise 60 companies led by Teva. The
sector includes 23 companies with sales.
The industry employs about 25,000 workers with 15,000 of them employed at Teva.
Israel is fourth in the world in biopharma patents per capita
(trailing only the US, Switzerland and Denmark.
An in-depth analysis shows Israel`s life science industry to be near
the top in many global indicators. The data was compiled by the new
umbrella organization set up to promote Israel`s life sciences
industry.