Teva and Sheba Medical Center Forge Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Israeli Health Tech Innovation Globally
Key Insights
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and ARC Innovation (search) at Sheba Medical Center signed a collaboration agreement to help Israeli health tech startups scale from pilots to global markets.
The partnership focuses on three areas: startup access to both organizations, clinical R&D collaboration, and logistics/operations including cold-chain and supply-chain challenges.
Both organizations won Israel Innovation Authority grants in December, which accelerated discussions and created converging paths for the collaboration.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and ARC Innovation (search), the global innovation arm of Sheba Medical Center, have signed a landmark agreement designed to move Israeli healthcare technologies from the pilot stage into hospitals, manufacturing, and global deployment. The partnership, finalized at the end of last month, brings together Israel's largest drugmaker and its most innovation-focused hospital to create a faster pathway from startup promise to real-world medicine.
The collaboration unites two Israeli heavyweights with significant global reach. Teva contributes pharmaceutical scale, manufacturing, logistics, research and development capabilities, and its new open-innovation platform called Teva Rise. ARC brings Sheba's clinical environment, physicians, laboratories, and a network that has already helped establish and invest in more than 100 healthcare startups across 10 countries worldwide.
A Shared Vision for Patient-Centered Innovation
Igal Gurevich, Teva Israel's head of strategic partnerships and corporate affairs, articulated the partnership's core logic: better technology can improve medication adherence, hospital care, personalized medicine, manufacturing, and logistics. "This should significantly accelerate the adoption of new technologies. And ultimately everything comes back to the patient," Gurevich told The Media Line.
"Teva benefits because patients use medications more effectively," he explained. "Sheba benefits because patients receive better care. The startup benefits too. But most importantly, the patient benefits. Technology can improve the effectiveness of both hospital treatment and pharmaceutical treatment."
Angela Rabinovich, ARC's chief business officer, framed the partnership as a way to combine two organizations with different strengths and a shared global innovation mindset. "ARC and Teva each bring different strengths, and the structured model we've built allows us to create something bigger than the sum of its parts," she said.
Converging Paths Through Government Initiative
The collaboration gained momentum after both Teva and ARC won Israel Innovation Authority grants in December to establish pilot sites for Israeli technology companies. Neither organization knew the other was applying, and they did not apply together. However, after the authority announced the awards, discussions accelerated rapidly.
"I actually give a lot of credit to the Innovation Authority," Gurevich commented. "Through one government program, they unintentionally connected two major organizations." The Innovation Authority program runs through the end of 2028.
Three Pillars of Collaboration
The partnership is structured around three primary areas of focus. First, startups that approach either Teva or ARC may now gain access to both organizations, creating wider opportunities to test, validate, and deploy technologies. "A startup can potentially test and deploy its technology at Teva sites in Israel and around the world, as well as at Sheba," Gurevich said. "The same works in reverse. Startups coming through Sheba can be referred to Teva."
Second, the two sides plan clinical and research and development collaborations, using technology to accelerate drug research, molecular searches, and clinical work. ARC's researchers, physicians, and laboratories create opportunities for joint studies, experiments, and innovation projects with Teva's R&D engine.
Third, they will tackle logistics and operations, including challenges such as cold-chain storage and supply-chain efficiency. Gurevich noted that Teva may be trying to solve a problem related to cold-chain storage and transportation of medications, while hospitals face similar challenges in getting those medications from the warehouse to the patient.
Governance and Funding Model
A joint steering committee has been established and will meet quarterly to evaluate potential projects. Working groups have been created to identify overlapping challenges and advance initiatives. Through Teva Rise, approximately 60 innovation leaders around the world identify challenges that, if solved, could shorten drug-development timelines, improve manufacturing processes, improve supply chains and logistics, increase patient adherence and compliance, or advance personalized medicine. ARC runs a similar process, and the two sides compare notes to find overlaps.
Each organization funds its own activities, and no specific budget was set for the partnership itself. Gurevich said budgets will be determined on a project-by-project basis, with some projects potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars and others reaching into the millions.
A Global Platform for Israeli Startups
"The startup ecosystem isn't interested only in Israel. It wants to expand globally," Gurevich explained. "We're serving as enablers. We're giving startups access not only to two major institutions in Israel but also, through us, to opportunities around the world."
Rabinovich concluded: "Together, we're building a comprehensive platform that connects both worlds in a way neither could achieve alone."