ARTICLE SUMMARY:
A well-connected Israeli incubator, backed by Sheba Medical Center, Boston Scientific, and Consensus Business Group, is seeding a new generation of medical devices, with a focus on innovation that makes interventional procedures safer and more accessible.
A former worldwide group head of marketing at Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Harel Gadot founded the Israeli venture firm MEDX Ventures Group in 2011 after realizing that medical device companies depend too heavily on internal R&D and need to embrace external innovations, but support for these kinds of initiatives was lacking. Several of its portfolio companies were sold, and one went public on NASDAQ.
The success of MVG motivated Gadot to start an early-stage incubator, MEDX Xelerator, in 2016. The aim is to encourage experienced investors to support start-ups at the pre-seed and seed stages, because “no one else was funding these companies,” he says. To do this, and deflect risk, MEDX offers start-ups the funding and resources they need to develop innovations rapidly, giving them access to cross-functional teams of experts in regulatory, engineering, clinical, and business functions.
