Large Exits Accentuate Sheba’s ARC Innovation System As Innovalve Bio Medical Ltd. is Acquired by Edwards Lifesciences Corp.

Within the past few weeks, Sheba has perhaps become the only hospital in the world to highlight two major tech exits worth hundreds of millions of dollars-in the middle of a regional conflict!

In early July, Alcon, a Swiss eye-care company, acquired Belkin Vision, which created a unique solution for glaucoma. Last week, ARC Innovation at Sheba Medical Center announced another successful startup exit from within its ecosystem with the acquisition of Innovalve Bio Medical Ltd. by Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW), a global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, as well as critical care and surgical monitoring. Following the acquisition, Innovalve will join Edwards’ transcatheter mitral and tricuspid therapies (TMTT) product group.

Founded in 2017 at Sheba Medical Center, Innovalve has developed an artificial mitral valve that can be replaced using a minimally invasive catheter to help treat patients suffering from heart disease. Innovalve has received FDA approval to begin clinical studies in humans. To date, more than 40 successful surgeries have been performed with this technology on humans.

The company grew out of inventions and patents developed by Prof. Ehud Raanani, Director of Sheba Medical Center’s Cardiovascular and Thoracic Center and Dr. Boris Orlev, Head of Sheba Medical Center’s Mitral Valve Surgery Unit. Today, Innovalve is led by CEO, Eyal Bar-Or and is located at Sheba allowing for close collaboration with clinicians and developers. 

“The health system is an engine of economic growth for the Israeli economy, Innovalve’s exit joins other Sheba companies acquired in recent months by international biomed giants, which have repeatedly expressed confidence in innovation coming out of Sheba,” said Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, Director General of Sheba Medical Center. “These achievements are made possible thanks to ARC – Sheba’s unique innovation platform, which encourages the development of groundbreaking technologies through the combination of technological entrepreneurship and extensive clinical knowledge and experience, at the patient’s bedside. Soon we will see more and more deals of this kind, the fruits of which strengthen and develop the public health system. This is a real revolution that transforms the health system, which for years had to budget for the state, into a factor that generates significant revenues for the Israeli economy.”

Both companies are part of a growing core of start-ups that are benefiting humanity on a global scale.