ISrael

SteadyMed Therapeutics has just joined the growing list of Israeli companies that got their start in a technological incubator, and that went on to gain investor confidence in a big way, by raising $40 million in its NASDAQ IPO.

SteadyMed Ltd. is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development of drug products to treat orphan and high value diseases with unmet parenteral delivery needs. The company’s lead candidate is Trevyent, a development stage drug product that utilizes SteadyMed’s PatchPump technology to administer treprostinil, a vasodilatory prostacyclin analogue to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension. PatchPump is a proprietary, disposable, parenteral drug administration platform that is prefilled and preprogrammed at the site of manufacture.

While the company is headquartered in the USA, much of the R&D work is done in Rehovot Israel.

As stated above, the company’s chief product is its PatchPump drug delivery system. The PatchPump is attached to the patient’s body where it delivers medication over a defined period using a battery powered disposable pump. The the battery (called an e-cell) serves as both power supply and pump as is shown in the following video clip:

The company got its start in 2005 in the Rad Biomed incubator by three founders: Ian Solomon, Amir Genosar, and Gideon Kahana. As with many Israeli startups the founders initially worked without receiving a salary while outsourcing much of the development work.

What is so interesting about the medical device scene in Israel, a tiny country roughly the size of Massachusetts with a population of approximately 8.3 million? Israel is so small that on most world maps the word “Israel” instead of appearing on the country itself, floats somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean. Why did Covidien, acquire four Israeli medical device companies over the space of 18 months including Given Imaging for $860 million? Why have other giant international medical device companies such as Medtronics, J&J, GE Medical and Stryker snapped up multiple Israeli medical device companies? Why is tiny Israel the home to approximately 700 medical device companies?

This blog will try to provide the answers to these questions, to profile exciting Israeli companies and to discuss medical devices in general.

Israel Medical Devices

The Latest on the Israeli Medical Device Scene

SteadyMed–From Incubator to IPO

Why Write a Blog About the Israeli Medical Device Scene?