Monday, July 16, 2007

This morning our group woke up very early to travel north to visit two health care companies - both portfolio companies of Israel Healthcare Ventures. The first company, based in Netanya, was NiTi Medical Technologies. The company has created a unique compression anastomosis device to serve as an alternative to stapling in surgery. The shape memory surgical rings and clips are applicable when used in gastrointestinal surgery. (To learn more, visit http://www.nititec.com). We learned this information firsthand from the company's CEO and the delegates had a chance to answer questions and make suggestions based on their extensive health care experience.
Our delegation then continued on to visit Cardiodex in the Caesarea high-tech area of Israel. Like Netanya, this was a very pretty area of the country, and the women enjoyed learning about Cardiodex's work as a company specializing in devices for arterial access closure (see http://www.cardiodex.com). This company, too, was very impressive, and our delegation got to witness the innovation in just two of Israel's (and Israel Healthcare Ventures') many exciting companies. We would add more details to this blog, however some of the details discussed in these meetings were confidential. We recommend you take a look at the two companies' websites to learn more about their devices.
We headed home, stopping by Maccabi - one of the four HMOs in Israel. There, the delegates got to see Israel's work towards an electronic health record and discuss the many challenges and opportunities our two countries have in common with this initiative.
The group then had a business dinner at the hotel with executives from InSightec, a sponsor of tonight's dessert reception in honor of our delegates. InSightec is a company that has created ExAblate 2000 (R), a focused MRI technology useful in non-surgically (rather, the MRI is the surgery!) removing fibroids. The company is hopeful that this device may be applied to tumors and cancer in the future. To learn more, visit http://www.insightec.com.
We then went downstairs to join about eighty leaders from Israel's health care industry for our dessert reception. WBL thanks our sponsors, including InSightec (and program sponsors Trendlines and Maccabi) for their support. Our delegation was just in awe of the quality of the networking at this event - they truly met a large subset of Israel's health care leadership -- including executives and board members from all types of companies and including both men and women. There must have been eighty - five people in the room at one point - for an 8:30 PM dessert reception that was completely planned by WBL from 5000 miles away! The delegation was introduced to those in attendance so that the Israelis in the audience knew whom they could connect with and do business with. Each one of our WBL delegates left with a stack of business cards and opportunities (some immediate) for new business. We just hope we were able to help the Israelis in attendance with some of their questions regarding the US health care industry and health care in general.
Several of the women joined us to continue networking after the reception, and we all headed off to sleep very late in the evening.