With the rise of technology in the cardiovascular field, there has been a move towards devices that are smaller and can be used for less invasive treatments.
Through the lens of ageing patient populations, technological development represents a way to make cardiovascular procedures safer and recovery times faster.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
At Biomed Israel, taking place from 12-14 May, Chaim Latan, professor of internal medicine and director of the Heart Institute at Hadassah-Hebrew University, will co-moderate a session on “Engineering the beating system: biology meets technology” alongside Gilad Glick, vice president, venture investments – Pharma Israel and MedTech Israel and Europe at Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
Topics under discussion during this session will include how cardiovascular medicine is undergoing a transformation driven by the convergence of biology, medical devices, and data science, and how these innovations are advancing cardiovascular treatment pathways end-to-end.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ross Law (RL): What factors are driving innovation in the cardiovascular field?
Professor Chaim Lotan (CL): The prevalent overarching factors driving innovation are unmet patient needs. I like to say that for innovation to happen, you need good unmet needs, good problems that need a solution. If you have good problems, then you have to find good solutions, and finding good solutions is sometimes about thinking outside of the box.
In my field, stents and everything involved in procedures are becoming more miniaturised. Instead of opening the chest, for instance, you can nowadays go through the groin.
As such, a lot of things that we were doing with open heart surgery are being driven now by catheterisation instead, resulting in procedures that are not only less invasive but safer, too. Alongside this growth of devices that are smaller and less invasive for patients, the digital revolution is bringing us more data, and with the ability of artificial intelligence (AI), our ability to make better use of data and to be able to perform far more analysis than was previously the case, is driving the advance towards personalised medicine.
Part of the minimally invasive move for solutions are due to the ageing population. While this is more reality than ‘problem’, per se, it is undeniable that for older patients, it is optimal to ambulate them as soon as possible and get them on the road to recovery. Even in the field of orthopaedics, knee replacements, hip replacements and others, that usually required patients to stay in bed for more than a week, are nowadays same day procedures due to technological advances.
RL: Please talk more about AI’s role in the cardiovascular field.
CL: My view is that AI will take some time, but will eventually change our world, and in cardiovascular, it has application potential across all stages of the treatment pathway. It starts already in the stage of detection, and it seems that with AI, you can detect problems more easily across variant pathologies. With the help of AI, the technology also can aid in the detection of earlier deterioration.
A company I have been working with called Cordio Medical, for example, has developed a voice-based solution, in which AI can interpret changes to the voice for the early detection of heart failure, several weeks before a patient would have to be hospitalised. Heart failure is of course one of the most significant challenges for hospitals worldwide, and Cordio is just one example of a company that is using AI to recognise the early warning signs of the disorder, the aim being to improve patient outcomes by being able to address patients at risk more quickly.
RL: How else is AI impacting the cardiovascular field?
CL: AI has an increasing role to play in cardiovascular procedures themselves, with AI now being developed to guide procedural workflows, intraoperatively. AI, for instance, goes together with robotics to analyse use cases. Meanwhile, in the cath lab, AI will help us to perform better procedures with the provision of pre-operative analytics, meaning procedural planning with AI will likely make it swifter and most likely safer over time. Patient follow-up protocols via the application of AI are likely to improve, too. The technology really does have the potential to improve cardiovascular workflows end-to-end.
RL: Israel has emerged as a strong nation for innovation in the medical devices sector. How do you think about these key constituents in the industry?
CL: If you want to be successful, especially with medical innovation and medical devices, it is critically important to work within a close team. It is not enough to have the idea. If you want to be successful, you need to have a good team that will turn this idea into a product on the market. In addition to physicians, you need expert bio engineers, the support of venture capitals and good business personnel. Only at the point a team like this is assembled, with this myriad of wide-ranging yet complementary expertise, can succeed.
Israel has been one of the most successful places for innovation for quite some time now. My view is that this success emerges from a culture of thinking outside of the box to find solutions to problems. Meanwhile the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) performs an important role given that it is a strong supporter of homegrown innovation in the healthcare field.
My field is cardiovascular, and within the past few years, despite some challenging times for the nation, we’ve seen quite a few exits, the most notable of these being Cathworks, which was acquired by Medtronic in a $585m deal in April 2026. With the support of a strong expert ecosystem within Israel, innovation and companies exiting into the wider global market only looks set to continue.
