Health Tech Valley (HTV) is being built to solve one of medicine’s greatest challenges: breakthroughs take too long to reach patients. New treatments often require 10–15 years to move from laboratory discovery to clinical use. Led by Bar-Ilan University and Sheba Medical Center, HTV will unite research, clinical care, and technology to accelerate that process and move innovations from lab to patient at unprecedented speed.

Israel’s story has long been shaped by its valleys, from agricultural regions that sustained a young nation to the technology corridor that helped create the Start-Up Nation. Today, a new valley is emerging, focused not on crops or code but on health. HTV represents a national effort to transform scientific discovery into faster, life-saving care and establish a new model for 21st-century healthcare.

At its core is a simple idea: breakthroughs should not wait. Traditional innovation moves slowly from lab to trial to market. HTV compresses that timeline by integrating researchers, physicians, engineers, and industry partners within one ecosystem. Scientists developing diagnostics or therapies will work alongside clinicians treating patients, enabling discoveries to move rapidly from concept to clinical testing. This model is known as bioconvergence.

The approach is already visible in research emerging from Bar-Ilan and Sheba. Professor Sharon Rothstein has developed an imaging method that reveals key biological characteristics of tumors, including aggressiveness and oxygen levels, helping guide treatment decisions. Within HTV’s integrated environment, innovations like this can move quickly from university laboratories into hospital trials.

"The embodiment of bioconvergence"

HTV will include advanced laboratories, clinical infrastructure, shared research facilities, and collaborative spaces designed to foster interdisciplinary work. More than a campus, it will function as a fully integrated innovation hub and the most concentrated center of health innovation in Israel.

HTV is already attracting global partners. The Mayo Clinic is collaborating on biomedical research; Microsoft is embedding AI-driven healthcare and digital surgery technologies; Thomas Jefferson University is establishing a neuroscience and health innovation center; and Israel’s national genomic initiative, Psifas, is anchoring large-scale genomic research on campus.

“HTV is the embodiment of bioconvergence,” says Professor Arie Zaban, President of Bar-Ilan University. “This is how we will create not only new treatments but an entirely new model of health.”