{"id":607031,"date":"2026-04-14T21:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607031\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T21:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:24:15","slug":"israel-pushes-bioconvergence-as-next-economic-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607031\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel pushes bioconvergence as next economic frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Bioconvergence Program has invested heavily in research infrastructure, companies, human capital and regulation since its launch, with officials positioning the field as a new engine of economic growth that extends beyond health care into food, agriculture, industry, energy and the environment, according to a midterm government report.<\/p>\n

The report says the first phase of the program, approved for 2023 to 2027, carries a budget of about 548.5 million shekels, or roughly $145 million, and is being led through a partnership that includes the Israel Innovation Authority, the Planning and Budgeting Committee, the Defense Ministry\u2019s research and development directorate, the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, the Health Ministry and the Finance Ministry. The initiative grew out of recommendations by the Carmi Committee, which concluded that direct government intervention was needed to build a competitive multidisciplinary ecosystem with global ambitions.<\/p>\n

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The program defines bioconvergence as research and development that combines biology with at least one other technological discipline, such as engineering or computational science, with biology serving as a central component of the work. While the effort initially focused on health technology, the report says officials increasingly view the field as relevant to agriculture, food, manufacturing, energy, the environment and defense.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Israel had mapped 188 active bioconvergence companies as of October 2025. Of those, 95 were in medicine and health, 40 in food, 22 in agriculture, 21 in industry, eight in environment and energy and two in lifestyle applications. A chart in the report shows steady growth in the number of such companies from 2019 through 2025.<\/p>\n

The government said the program\u2019s first phase is built around four main pillars: developing research and development infrastructure, promoting research excellence, cultivating human capital and advancing supportive regulation. Of the approved budget, 274.5 million shekels was allocated for multidisciplinary R&D infrastructure, 203.5 million shekels for research excellence, 60.5 million shekels for human capital, 5 million shekels for regulation and 5 million shekels for program management.<\/p>\n

Among the flagship infrastructure projects cited in the report is a chip-based bio-devices center being built by a consortium of Israel Aerospace Industries and Beckermus Technologies. The project has a budget of up to 113 million shekels, including 75 million shekels from the Israel Innovation Authority. The report also highlights Israel\u2019s first multi-omics research platform, established in 2025 at the Technion in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University and the University of Haifa, with 15 million shekels in support from the Planning and Budgeting Committee.<\/p>\n

Beyond the dedicated national program budget, the report points to additional infrastructure investments, including fermentation capacity for food and agriculture at YDLabs, 3D biological models for cancer research at Alvox Bio and synthetic biology services at Alagene. It says YDLabs expanded to about 30 employees and tripled revenue in 2024 despite wartime disruption.<\/p>\n

The Israel Innovation Authority separately approved about 348 million shekels in support for bioconvergence entrepreneurs, companies and R&D infrastructure between 2022 and 2025 outside the TELEM framework, according to the report. That included funding for early-stage ventures through incubators and innovation labs, as well as growth-stage companies. The report says 28 bioconvergence-classified projects were supported through the technology incubator track over that period.<\/p>\n

The report also highlights AION Labs, which it describes as Israel\u2019s first innovation lab built with backing from AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, the Israeli Biotech Fund, Amiti Ventures, Amazon Web Services and BioMed X. Eight companies founded between late 2023 and early 2025 are operating within the lab, developing AI-driven tools for drug discovery, the report says.<\/p>\n

On the research side, seven consortia operated with support from the Israel Innovation Authority between 2022 and 2025, receiving a combined 203 million shekels in grants, according to the report. They included efforts focused on CRISPR-based gene editing, biochips, cultured meat, liquid biopsy, organoids, black soldier fly technologies and biodegradable plastics. The report says these consortia brought together startups, mature companies and academic groups across fields including medicine, biology, engineering, computation and agriculture.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology funded 106 bioconvergence research projects totaling 55 million shekels between 2023 and 2025, according to the report, covering areas such as regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, smart implants, drug design, environmental sensors and theranostics. The report also says 31 R&D programs were funded through applied research and knowledge commercialization grants totaling about 36.6 million shekels by the end of the third quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

To address workforce needs, the report says the Israel Innovation Authority approved 11 training and retraining programs in bioconvergence between 2022 and 2025, with grants totaling 11.7 million shekels and roughly 1,000 expected participants. The programs include training for cultured meat production, 3D printing for life sciences and medicine, hospital work for engineers and programmers, entrepreneurship, regulation and executive leadership. The defense R&D directorate, known as Maf\u2019at, separately said it had run three cohorts of its Bio-Talpiot training program, graduating 21 trainees.<\/p>\n

\"IsraelIsrael Innovation Authority CEO Dror Bin Photo: Israel Innovation Authority<\/p>\n

The report says regulation has been a central part of the strategy, especially in food and health. In food, a regulatory pilot with the Health Ministry helped produce guidance for novel foods such as cultured meat and precision-fermented ingredients. The report says Aleph Farms and Remilk received approval through that process, with Imagindairy later benefiting from its outcomes. In health, the Innovation Authority\u2019s \u201cDisruptive Ventures\u201d track supports companies trying to reach first-in-human trials through an Israeli regulatory sandbox. Three companies have received a combined 20.9 million shekels in grants, with 5 million shekels from the Health Ministry, according to the report.<\/p>\n

One of those companies, PreciseBio 3D, recently achieved what the report describes as the world\u2019s first successful 3D-printed cornea transplant in a human clinical trial at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. The report also cites SpotItEarly, which uses dogs\u2019 olfactory responses to screen for cancer, and Edity Therapeutics, which is developing engineered cell-based cancer treatments, as examples of technologies navigating novel regulatory pathways.<\/p>\n

The report portrays the program not only as a domestic industrial strategy but also as part of Israel\u2019s international positioning in bioconvergence and the broader bioeconomy. It says the program has been presented at conferences in Israel and abroad, that the World Economic Forum has featured Israeli work on alternative proteins and that the OECD selected Israel\u2019s program as a prototype for a multidisciplinary technology domain in its 2025 science, technology and innovation outlook.<\/p>\n

In its conclusion, the report says the first years of the program have laid the foundations for a multidisciplinary ecosystem spanning basic research, applied development and commercialization, while acknowledging that challenges remain in building human capital, maturing infrastructure and adapting regulation for emerging technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Bioconvergence Program has invested heavily in research infrastructure, companies, human capital and regulation since its launch,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-607031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}