The Israel Advanced Technology Industries opened MIXiii Health-Tech.IL 2026 in Jerusalem on Monday, drawing roughly 1,800 participants and representatives from more than 40 countries to the International Convention Center, organizers said. The annual conference, led by IATI CEO and President Karin Mayer Rubinstein, is one of Israel’s central gatherings for the life sciences, biomedical and health-tech sectors. Doctors, ambassadors, investors, fund representatives, startup executives, senior development professionals and engineers all showed up for the same polished marketplace, where the language of innovation sits comfortably beside the machinery of state power.
The Conference and the State
The opening event took place in the presence of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion; Mark Sabag, executive vice president, International Markets Commercial at Teva; Orit Efrati, chairwoman of Shenkar’s Board of Governors; India’s Ambassador to Israel Jitender Pal Singh; and Yossi Ofek, CEO of Teva Israel. The conference was produced by Stier Group. That lineup says plenty. City hall, corporate medicine, foreign diplomacy and venture capital all packed into one room, each one smiling through the same script about growth, resilience and opportunity.
This year’s conference is being held under the banner of investment, with more than 60 investors and 30 venture capital funds from around the world participating, according to organizers. The agenda includes emergency medicine, a field that has taken on added importance due to recent wars and battlefield experience; tech-bio; healthcare venture building; home care and remote monitoring; emerging technologies from Israeli academia; and innovation in ophthalmology. War doesn’t just destroy. It also creates markets, panels and pitch decks.
Mayer Rubinstein said the Israeli high-tech sector, including the biomed industry, is operating today in a complex and challenging environment. She said that alongside the security reality, geopolitical uncertainty and economic challenges, it is also dealing with significant global changes, led by the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Despite those challenges, she said, Israeli high-tech remains a central growth engine for the country’s economy, continues to attract investors and international companies, and has repeatedly proven its resilience and ability to adapt.
Innovation, Investment, and the Usual Gatekeepers
One of the conference’s main additions this year is the first IATI TTOs Pitch Session, which brings technology transfer organizations from leading Israeli research institutions, universities and hospitals to the stage. During the session, commercialization companies are presenting new life sciences and healthcare technologies to investors and venture capital representatives in an effort to strengthen the connection between Israeli research, the investment community and industry. Mayer Rubinstein said the conference was designed to help turn Israeli innovation into partnerships, investment, and commercial activity.
MIXiii Health-Tech.IL is a concrete expression of this strength, she said. Over two days in Jerusalem, hundreds of senior figures from the life sciences and digital health industries are meeting with investors, pharma companies, health systems, researchers, and decision-makers from Israel and around the world. The whole setup is built to move ideas upward, into institutions and capital, where they can be priced, packaged and sold. The people who actually need care are nowhere in the pitch.
In a separate event hosted by the Jerusalem Development Authority, five biomed startups presented their developments after being selected from roughly 300 biomedical companies operating in Jerusalem, organizers said. Among the participating companies was EMRIS Pharma, which develops treatments aimed at preventing skin toxicities caused by targeted cancer therapies. The companies presented their technologies to executives from leading biomed companies and investment funds from Israel and abroad. The gatekeepers remain the same. The names change, the funnel doesn’t.
The NGO Mirage of Growth
For IATI, Mayer Rubinstein said, the conference is part of a broader year-round effort to strengthen Israel’s position in the global innovation arena. Throughout the year, she said, the organization works to connect Israeli companies with investors and strategic partners, promote policy that supports industry growth, and expand international cooperation. Especially during this period, she said, it is important to continue telling the story of Israeli innovation to the world, strengthen investor confidence, and ensure that high-tech in general and life sciences in particular continue to serve as major growth engines for the Israeli economy in the years ahead.
That’s the language of the apparatus: confidence, policy, cooperation, growth. It’s all very clean, very funded, very professional. What it leaves out is the ordinary fact that this sector doesn’t float above the political order. It is embedded in it, fed by it, and celebrated by it. The conference’s own agenda makes that plain, with emergency medicine elevated by recent wars and battlefield experience, while investors and officials gather to turn that experience into a business model.
The event’s scale also matters. Roughly 1,800 participants. More than 40 countries. More than 60 investors. 30 venture capital funds. Five startups selected from roughly 300 biomedical companies in Jerusalem. Those numbers describe a machine that knows exactly how to convert crisis into opportunity, and how to dress that conversion up as progress.
The conference may call itself a meeting place for science, medicine and innovation. It is also a reminder that in Jerusalem, even health-tech arrives with the stamp of state institutions, corporate sponsors and international capital already on the door.