We’re excited to be back for another episode of the Life Sciences Today Podcast by Healthcare IT Today. My guest today is Shai Policker, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Edge Medical Ventures! I sit down with Policker to challenge a provocative thesis: that Israeli medtech is trapped in a cycle of underfunding, walking-dead companies, and missed commercialization opportunities. I bring the data — $5.6B raised by 41 US medtech companies in 15 months, zero Israeli — and argue that the Israel Innovation Authority’s habit of writing small checks keeps entrepreneurs in perpetual poverty rather than building a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Policker pushes back with a counter-model: Edge VC’s venture studio approach, which starts from validated unmet needs sourced from large medical device corporations, builds companies from scratch, and bridges Israeli innovation to US commercial operations through a first-of-its-kind partnership with the state of New Jersey. The result: Israeli R&D capital efficiency meets American go-to-market expertise.
Our conversation covers the IAA’s evolving funding programs, why US investors still see Israel as a premier innovation hub, and what it actually takes to cross the ocean without crashing into the wall.
Check out the main topics of discussion for this episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast:
- Tell me about your journey.
- Break it down for our audience – when you say ‘a venture studio’, ‘we’re more of a VC’, and ‘we’re more hands on’, what does that mean?
- Were you with the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) for a while?
- How much money are you managing right now?
- My controversial opinion is that as a citizen of Israel, I would like my government investing more in the ecosystem and less in helping VC’s make more money. I know you don’t agree with this – so what is your view?
- Would Israel as a country be better off if the government was creating commercialization infrastructure?
- What is, in your opinion, the biggest anti-pattern in the Israeli medtech industry?
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If you work in Life Sciences IT, we’d love to hear where you agree and/or disagree with our takes on health IT innovation in life sciences. Feel free to share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments of this post, in the YouTube comments, or privately on our Contact Us page. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if you have any ideas for future episodes.
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