Longevity Industry in Israel Reaching
Critical Mass
Israel Established as International Longevity Hub Due to its Well-Developed Scientific BioTech Community and Strong Reputation for Academic-Industry Collaboration
Over 500 pages in length, a new report by Aging Analytics Agency, Israeli Longevity Alliance and the Vetek Association outlines the present state and future of the Longevity Industry in Israel, profiling 160 companies, 180 investors, 10 longevity R&D centers, 10 nonprofit organizations, 60 influencers, 7 university research hubs and 10 conferences.
The Longevity Industry lies at the nexus of geroscience, advanced biomedicine, P3 (precision, preventive, and personalized) medicine, the AgeTech market, and finance. The complexity and regional diversity of this multidisciplinary sector requires country and region-specific analysis. Longevity Industry in Israel is part of a series of regional case studies of the Longevity Industry around the globe. These regional studies follow two previous reports by the Aging Analytics Agency: Longevity Industry Landscape Overview Volume I “The Science of Longevity” (750 pages), and Volume II “The Business of Longevity” (650 pages).
The report seeks to document the factors that make Israel an optimal academic and industry ecosystem for the formation of an internationally-recognized Longevity Industry hub, and how the Israeli government can accelerate the expansion of its Longevity Industry landscape. Israel is a unique country with close academic and industrial ties to the United States and Europe. Consequently, Israel's geroscience has matured rapidly, outpacing the rest of the geographical region, with at least one aging research center or cluster already present or planned in every university. For many years, Israel has been outputting high-volume, high-quality research into the fundamental biology of aging. It is also an attractive technology and innovation hub: the amount of funding raised by high-tech startups in Israel continues to grow, reaching record $ 6.47 bln in 2018 through 623 deals. Large IT and tech giants have been opening locations in Israel. Google, for instance, established an R&D center in Israel in 2016, where many of the company's most important products (including Google Suggest, Google Trends, and Google Live Results) were developed. In January 2019, Intel announced its plan to invest additional $11 bln in its Israel operations.
The importance of the advancement of biomedical R&D for the promotion of healthy longevity and prevention of aging-related diseases has been increasingly recognized by Israeli decision makers. Discussions on the subject were held in Knesset as a part of the preparation of the Israel National Masterplan on Aging. These efforts are further bolstered by the Israeli government’s proactive approach to forming international research collaborations with other Longevity-oriented c