Teva is seeking Israeli startups to help advance innovation across the company, offering to fund their research and development and even support their market integration. The initiative is part of Rise, a program announced several months ago in partnership with the Israel Innovation Authority and Startup Nation Central, with a budget of 10 million dollars.
On Tuesday, Teva published its open call and defined the areas in which it is seeking solutions. Companies developing human-based models for testing biologic drugs as an alternative to animal experiments, AI-based tools for clinical trial simulation and design, or technologies that improve patient experience and adherence to long-acting injectable treatments are among those Teva hopes to attract.
Beyond healthcare, Teva is also looking for advanced analytics for bid optimization, predictive maintenance tools for equipment and assets, systems for product quality and risk forecasting, and technologies that optimize manufacturing resource allocation. These fields comprise the seven innovation domains the company is targeting.
Yossi Ofek, Teva Israel’s CEO and cluster head for Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East, told ynet that the Rise platform reflects Teva’s strategic shift toward entrepreneurial thinking. “More resources are going toward developing innovative medicines,” he said. “But innovation today isn’t only about the molecule. It touches the entire value chain, from drug development to delivery and through every link of the supply chain. Heavy regulation adds major costs, and external technologies can streamline the process.”
Teva recognizes that the fastest and most effective innovation often emerges from small, agile startups, and wants to harness them as part of its innovation engine. Rise was built as an open program run from Israel, even though it is aimed at entrepreneurs worldwide. “This shows the strong confidence Teva’s CEO, Richard Francis, has in Israel’s innovation capabilities—even during the war,” Ofek said. “He asked for proposals, and the Israeli plan was impressive. For a global company headquartered in New Jersey with another main office in Amsterdam, it could easily have been managed elsewhere.”
2 View gallery
Richard Francis, Teva’s president and CEO, announces the innovation program
(Photo: Rotem Lahav)
Preparing for up to 560 proposals
Teva expects about 80 proposals in each of the seven domains, roughly 560 in total. These will undergo rapid screening, followed by due diligence on about 10 companies per category. Ultimately, one or two projects per domain will be selected. Ofek declined to specify how much Teva will invest in each company, saying funding will depend on the scope of the adjustments needed to integrate the product into Teva’s platform. The greater the required adaptation, the larger the investment.
He emphasized that Teva does not demand equity or exclusivity. “A startup can still work with venture capital,” he said. “We don’t ask for ownership. We pick startups that can tailor their product to our needs, and we fully fund the pilot until proof of concept. Then we integrate it into Teva’s supply chain. We don’t even demand exclusivity on that integration. They get a service contract, full funding of the pilot and integration.”
Ofek said the seven challenges Teva designed carry “tens of millions, even up to 100 million dollars in aggregate yearly impact,” and that interest is expected from across global venture capital and startup ecosystems—not only in pharma.
He noted that even the world’s most innovative pharmaceutical giants are adopting open innovation models. “AstraZeneca launched a very focused open innovation program two months ago,” he said. “The world understands that with rapid technological development, much of the knowledge is outside the company. If you want real, swift transformation, you must source it externally.”
Alongside the Rise challenges, Teva is examining the establishment of a new innovation center at its sites in Israel, designed to conduct technological pilots for the program. The center could become a core facility for evaluating solutions from Rise and may expand Teva’s broader innovation interface with the Israeli tech ecosystem.