Teva Bets Big on Israel To Reinvent the Future of Health
Teva is launching Teva Rise, a new open-innovation platform meant to bring the company closer to startups and technology disruptors working to improve human health
Israel’s innovation engine is getting ready for another major push; this time, from one of the country’s most recognizable global players.
Teva is launching Teva Rise, a new open-innovation platform meant to bring the company closer to startups and technology disruptors working to improve human health. The goal, Teva said, is to position itself not just as a pharmaceutical manufacturer but as a bridge between the greatest tech talent and global healthcare needs.
Rather than simply scouting for ideas, Rise is designed to take these ideas and match them with Teva’s global footprint, scientific know-how, and manufacturing scale. The solutions could then meaningfully impact patient care and drive new avenues of growth for the company.
According to Teva, the initiative is part of the company’s broader “Pivot to Growth” strategy, a plan to transform Teva into a more agile, technology-driven healthcare leader.
The timing is strategic.
The pharmaceutical industry is undergoing dramatic change as artificial intelligence and digital tools begin reshaping every stage of the drug pipeline, from discovery to development to manufacturing. Teva Rise is the company’s attempt to open its doors to that global wave of innovation and identify the technologies that will push biopharma into its next era.
To really differentiate ourselves and drive our strategy forward, we really need to get out there and harness technologies that are out there
Startups and innovators across Israel, the US, Europe, and other regions will be able to access Teva’s real-world validation environments, offering a rare opportunity to test and scale their solutions within one of the world’s largest generic drugmakers. In return, Teva gains early visibility into tools that could improve efficiency, lower costs, and strengthen outcomes for millions of patients.
The company said it is also evaluating plans to establish a dedicated innovation center in Israel to run technological pilots. If built, the center would serve as the hub for Rise’s first challenge cycle and could anchor deeper collaboration with Israel’s tech ecosystem on future challenges beyond the pilot stage.
One of the central pillars of Teva’s Pivot to Growth strategy is innovation, said Dr. Maya Schushan Orgad, who is now leading the Teva Rise initiative.
“For Teva to fulfill its strategic goals, it needs to bring innovation inside and drive that innovation forward,” Orgad told The Media Line. “That’s a bit of an inflection point from the Teva point of view.”
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We’re calling startups and tech innovators to submit their proposals to solve our challenges
Orgad noted that “the tech world is exploding” with new AI capabilities, and companies like Teva must learn how to use them effectively. Over the last several years, she said, it became clear that internal innovation alone would not be enough.
“To really differentiate ourselves and drive our strategy forward, we really need to get out there and harness technologies that are out there,” Orgad said. “This was the motivation that led to Teva Rise.”
The program’s first call for submissions focuses on seven categories across R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and commercial operations. These include human models for testing biological drugs; AI-based simulations for clinical trial protocols; improving patient experience with long-acting injectable treatments; evaluating digital health tools, smart devices, or behavioral science-driven solutions that reduce daily treatment burden; advanced analytics for bid optimization; predictive maintenance for equipment and assets; product quality management and risk prediction; and tools to optimize manufacturing resource allocation.
According to the company, each challenge reflects real-world business needs and will be guided by a senior Teva leader together with a central unit established in Israel. Startups selected through this process will have the opportunity to pilot their solutions within Teva and, if successful, scale them across the company’s global operations.
Teva expects to invest tens of millions of dollars over the coming years in adopting innovative solutions that emerge from these collaborations.
Orgad said the groundwork for this process began with identifying “champions” inside Teva’s business units who could surface the company’s most urgent, unresolved challenges—areas where existing tools or in-house capabilities had fallen short.
“In such cases, when they’re high-impact problems, the idea is saying this: ‘OK, these have not been solved. Let’s go for startups. Startups can solve the unsolvable,” Orgad explained.
“Once we identify these challenges, which we have already done with these specific business units, we decide which of them to launch externally in an open call,” she continued. “We’re calling startups and tech innovators to submit their proposals to solve our challenges.”
Because Rise is a platform rather than a one-off program, this process will repeat regularly. Once the first round of ideas is selected, funded, and—ideally—scaled, Teva will begin preparing the next cycle.
“We plan to launch such programs around a nice chunk of challenges twice a year, each around different topics, different areas,” Orgad said.
Mati Gill, the CEO of AION Labs, an Israeli AI/pharma innovation lab, told The Media Line that Teva has played an increasingly significant role in Israel’s biopharmaceutical innovation landscape over the last few years. Innovation, he said, has now become part of the company’s DNA.
“In recent years, Teva is placing more of an emphasis on that—globally and [at] the corporate leadership level, and you can feel that top down,” Gill said.
He added that one of the most encouraging aspects of Teva Rise is that the program is being run in Israel by Israeli leaders, a decision that he believes will strengthen the local ecosystem. Gill stressed that Teva’s choice to anchor the initiative in Israel is not symbolic; it reflects a belief that doing so will create real value.
He noted that if Teva “did not believe running this out of Israel would drive value, it would not have selected the Jewish state,” despite the company’s origins.
It’s great to see Teva rising like a phoenix from some of its toughest times. Looking for innovation will mean Teva getting stronger and stronger.
“It’s great to see Teva rising like a phoenix from some of the toughest times they’ve had,” Gill said. “Looking for innovation will mean Teva getting stronger and stronger.”
Orgad echoed his sentiment. She described Israel as the quintessential startup nation, with a high-tech sector that not only understands innovation but knows how to harness it at scale.
“We think the same startup approach is relevant to building this unit,” Orgad told The Media Line. “Starting in Israel gives us really great access to amazing technologies and supports Israel from a Zionist perspective as well.”
Richard Francis, Teva’s CEO and president, summed up the company’s broader vision: “We are not only modernizing how we work, but we are also transforming the future of health for patients everywhere.”
