Solution Nation 
Jonathan Glazer
Pitango Venture Capital
Listen to Jonathan Glazer speak about the factors that spell success for Israeli medical companies.
The following are among the issues discussed:
- Regulatory pathways
- Insurance coverages
- Targeting sales to decision makers and estimating sales cycles
- Collaborating with academia
- Adoption by physicians and other medical professionals
Jonathan Glazer, MD, MBA VC / Pitango Venture Capital
Jonathan Glazer partners with outstanding early-stage HealthTech founding teams in segments ranging from digital health, to medical devices and diagnostics, to foodtech, agtech, biotech and life sciences
◆ Partnering with outstanding early-stage HealthTech founding teams in segments ranging from digital health, to medical devices and diagnostics, to foodtech, agtech, biotech and life sciences
◆ Emergency Medicine Specialist and Healthcare Executive with clinical, operational and managerial experience in hospitals, pre-hospital, and military systems
◆ Combining interpersonal skills with diverse experience in the healthcare business ecosystem to provide strategic consulting for tech companies
◆ An enthusiastic lecturer, researcher, and goal-oriented business professional with proven abilities in influencing and engaging executives and key stakeholders
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SHOW NOTES:
00:00:59 – This is super important for us as a team and also adds tremendous value
So Pitango, as you mentioned, was established roughly three decades ago, early 1990s by Amikalij and Mr. Hamiper were amongst the founding fathers of the Israeli VC industry in Israel. Sorry. Probably he’s the largest fund in Israel with $3 billion of assets under management. The fund is divided into three separate funds grow at early stage in health tech. There is also a professional layer of team members dedicated to different functions such as HR, marketing, Value add impact, ESG, legal, etc.
Now, this is super important for us as a team and also adds tremendous value and advantage to our companies and entrepreneurs, specifically the Hel Tech Fund.
So it is being led by my partner, Mr. Retireel, who is a general manager in Pittangle for the last 15 years and also a successful entrepreneur in his past. In the Altech Fund, we see roughly 1000 companies a year. We’re meeting 100 companies and investing three to five companies.
00:09:48 – If you’re a senior emergency physician in AR, you are supposed to deal with many different emergencies.
For healthcare investors, definitely being a physician is obviously an advantage. I think specifically a physician with hands on experience and particularly emergency medicine.
It gives you quite a wide spectrum of clinical point of views. So if you’re a senior emergency physician in AR, you are supposed to deal with many different emergencies. It could be trauma, toxicology and ecology, pediatric orthopedics internal medicine, infectious disease, sepsis. So it gives you quite wide base of knowledge. And I think in my case also I was fortunate enough to experience the system from different angles. So I was an intern, I was a resident, I was a senior physician and an executive. So I could see it from many aspects. And I guess it’s an advantage, right.
00:28:23 – Sales are supposed to be based on very hard facts
Selling to hospitals is complicated and also a long sell cycle, I can say. Usually, you have to make a few customer development interviews prior to your arrival. You have the end-users. The sale there is supposed to be based on very hard facts about safety, about how fast it is, how efficient it is, the device or the process or the software you are selling.
And then you have a different kind of selling. You have to sell to the sea level in the hospital, which has a different angle, more financial angle, maybe also in a provider system, both in Israel and in the States. It’s a multi-sectorial system. So sometimes you have to go through many sectors with different incentives and find a way to align this head nurse has probably different incentives head of surgery. So you have to find a way to win all those fights, right.
00:34:47 – Eventually happy patients make happy health care workers and vice versa
The US healthcare system is very different in Israeli. Israeli single-payer system, Capitated Payment. Usually, US is a multiplayer system, traditionally fee for service, although a lot of value-based care models. Sure. The risk of savings and you name it. So maybe the common thing that they both have is maybe after Coldwell it was more exposed.
But I think the fragility of both systems and the need to go forward faster and implement innovation, innovation that not only saves the patient’s life, but also addresses the health care workers and their burnout and the friction, the high friction they have.
So eventually happy patients make happy health care workers and vice versa. But yeah, definitely. So about the sale, most of our companies, I mean, all of our companies are aiming to the US market. So I think from day one, unless you have a good reason, you have to work with your target market, not with any other market. .
00:40:16 – There is a big trust base, and we don’t encounter those unfortunate instances when it becomes misaligned with the entrepreneur incentives.
We like to invest with strategic investors and corporate VCs. We have a lot of experience with this. Yeah. You can imagine different scenarios which does not work well, or align with different incentives and selling points or different payment systems or collaborating with one can prevent you from selling to another.
But basically, we nurture partnerships for many years. So there is a big trust base, and we don’t encounter those unfortunate instances when it becomes misaligned with the entrepreneur incentives. We’re not playing those games. We know who we work with. As I mentioned, we are particular about the founders, entrepreneurs and about our co-investors. So there is a lot of trusts here, and usually, it works really well.
00:48:46 – Basically clinical trial is the thing we take very seriously here.
So I think it depends. It depends on the company and their domain and the clinical trial, the burden of proof they have to deliver. So it varies a lot.
But basically clinical trial is the thing we take very seriously here. And we read those papers and those trials and research in very critical life. It takes years to become proficient enough to understand all bits and bytes of something of a paper you read.
I suggest, you know, generalists that come to consult with us. We usually help them evaluate the research or point them to the right professional to do so. But you can use some guidelines if you want to see if a clinical trial is from certain quality and you can direct your startups and entrepreneurs to those quality paths. You want to have randomized clinical trials, and double-blinded clinical trials because you want to prove causality more than association.
OTHER RESOURCES:
1) Enhanced Negotiating Strategies: This two-day seminar discusses the most intense negotiating strategies and tactics allowed without violating your ethics or morals
2) Valuation of Emerging Technologies: This seminar provides an in-depth review of more than 20 Valuation Methodologies
3) Solution Nation – The Book: Learn how the world’s most disadvantaged and destitute people stand to benefit from Israeli ingenuity.