About Us

What We Do…

It's Strictly Business [with a whole lot of heart]

Sanara matchmakes the best players in the healthcare eco-system, adding value to each in the process. We actively introduce promising entrepreneurs with expert board members and seasoned investors to facilitate synergistic relationships and accelerate medical innovation delivery to the world. Established in 2015, we’ve accrued the most up to date experience and refined our processes to best serve entrepreneurs and investors alike.

Focus Areas

Digital Health

Bio-Convergence Technologies

Drug – Device Combinations

Our Team

It’s All About the Team Work

Sanara Ventures

Assaf Barnea

Chief Executive Officer

Eran Toledo

Chief Technology Officer

Eli Yered

Chief Financial Officer

Pinchas Halpern

Chief Medical Officer

Adi Gal

Head of HR

Hila Zur

Administrative Manager & PA

Board Of Directors

Jan Kimpen, MD

Chief Medical Officer, Philips Healthcare

Eli Shani

EVP Global Marketing and Portfolio at Teva Pharmaceuticals

Yossi Ofek

Vice President, Cluster Head – Israel, Ukraine & South Africa at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries

Mark Sabag

Executive Vice President - Head of International Markets, Teva Pharmaceuticals

Rich Wilmot

Head of Philips Ventures

Dr. Efrat Shefer

President of Philips Israel

SANARA Advisory Board

Sanara Ventures’ International Advisory Board Members offer portfolio companies international reach (over a local cup of coffee) Our Advisory Board comprises subject matter experts from across the world who engage with our portfolio companies in myriad ways.

Sanara’s portfolio enjoys unique access to a global network of professional expertise, including: Philips, Teva, VC/CVCs, hospitals, strategic players, research institutions, clinicians and many more.

Assaf Barnea
A seasoned entrepreneur and venture professional, with extensive, multidisciplinary experience in building innovation platforms and leading commercialization processes in healthcare.
Assaf chairs the Life Science Advisory Board at The Israel Export Institute, promoting and advancing the export of Israeli technologies in the medical, biotech, pharma and digital fields in global markets. A valued consultant, he also advises the World Bank’s IFC venture capital team and is a co-founder of the IFC’s Tech Emerge initiative, a unique acceleration platform connecting healthcare startups from around the world with leading corporations and hospitals in emerging economies.
Formerly, Assaf was one of the founders of CardioSense, a medtech startup that developed a probe for early shock detection in various medical settings.
Before lending his multidisciplinary acumen to Sanara Ventures, Assaf served as CEO of Kinrot Ventures, spearheading its acquisition by Hutchison Water in 2012. Prior to this, he headed business development at Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, where he oversaw the establishment of WaTech, the Entrepreneurship & Partnership Center for Water Technologies. For his accomplishments in both Mekorot and Kinrot, he received the Cleantech Group’s Innovation Hero Award in April 2013, which recognizes individuals whose commitment, drive and passion have made a tangible difference for innovation in general and specifically for many start-up companies.
Previously, Assaf served for four years as director of business development at Comverse, where he also co-chaired the Mobile Marketing Association.
A unique highlight in Assaf’s story is his former stint as a college basketball player at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University, where he won the Big East championship against Georgetown. He went on to play professional basketball in Israel’s national league, while completing multiple academic degrees.
A certified lawyer, Assaf holds both law and business degrees from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzlia, and a BA in political science and psychology from Tel-Aviv University.

Eran Toledo
PhD
Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Eran Toledo, is an experienced executive, with a strong background in both academic research and industrial development projects. Prior to joining Sanara Ventures, Eran was VP Research and Development with Aspect Imaging, a well-established startup in the field of MRI, with applications in diagnostic medicine, pre-clinical research, the food and oil industries. Earlier, Eran was VP Research and Development with Biological Signal Processing (BSP), a startup that developed a novel marker of ischemic heart disease based on a unique approach to ECG signal analysis. Before joining the private sector, Eran was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Chicago, where he focused on developing quantitative imaging techniques in the field of cardiology. Eran also served as a research officer in the IDF Signal Corps.
Eran is a graduate of the distinguished Talpiot program. He holds a BSc in Physics and Mathematics from Hebrew University, Jerusalem and a PhD in Medical Physics from Tel Aviv University. He has over 10 years of managerial experience in the medical device industry and extensive academic research experience. Eran has authored and co-authored over 35 scientific publications and is the inventor and co-inventor of several medical device patents.

Eli Yered,
Chief Financial Officer

Eli holds more than a decade of experience in corporate finance, strategy, and accounting management coupled with computer engineering and mathematics education.

Before joining Sanara Ventures, he was the CFO of PPS, a world-leading tactile sensing solutions provider, and its six subsidiaries. At PPS, he played a vital role in raising various private investments as well as government and strategic grants. During his tenure, Sierra Scientific Instruments, a subsidiary of PPS, was sold for $35M. He also recently advised NGT3, an early-stage investment firm focused on medical device and life science technologies, in assessing new technologies.

Mr. Yered is an officer in the Israeli army and holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, where he graduated as a member of the Dean’s List of Honor. He also holds a BSC in Computer Engineering from the Hebrew University.

Pinchas Halpern, MD
Chief Medical Officer

Prof. Pinchas (“Pinny”) Halpern is a clinical Associate Professor of anesthesia, critical care and emergency medicine at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, at Tel Aviv Medical Center. He is past President of the Israeli Association for Emergency Medicine and its current secretary; Chair of the medical advisory committee of Magen David Adom National EMS and serves on its board of directors. He trained in anesthesiology at Tel Aviv and in critical care medicine at Ohio State University. Prof. Halpern has led training missions in emergency and disaster medicine to Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Jordan, Poland and the US.

Adi Gal
Head of HR

Adi Gal is a Leadership Development Consultant and C-Suite Coach with Executive Development Associates.
Adi is a Senior Leadership Consultant and has almost 20 years of experience helping people and organization turn potential to success.
In the past 8 years she was Head of “Lamerhav’s” Hod Hasharon House, Director of Development at this program which considered as a Startup in the social sector since 2000, and additionally managed the program’s national selection process.
Adi holds a Master’s degree in Social Work in Clinical Internship from Haifa University and is a certified psychotherapist, with a degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Hila Zur
Administrative Manager & PA
Hila Zur has extensive experience in administration and as a personal executive assistant. Hila has worked in both hi-tech and the traditional industry.
Hila holds a B.A. in Psychology from Open University, Israel.

Janette Lazarovits
Bio-convergence Advisor
Dr. Lazarovits provides technical and strategic guidance to Sanara and its portfolio companies across all phases of drug, biologics, device, and bio-convergence technologies development.
She holds a PhD from University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSCD) and completed a Post-doctoral fellowship in the field of cell and Molecular Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Dr. Lazarovits has over three decades of knowledge in biomedical research & development, Molecular & Cell biology, Immunotherapy and bio-convergence in addition to vast experience in technical management and in industrial R&D programs and consortiums in various cutting edge biomedical fields.
She also has extensive industry and Israel Innovation Authority experience in the establishment and implementation of national innovative R&D programs and infrastructure in the following fields: bio-convergence, bio-banking, and more.
Furthermore, Dr. Lazarovits has a long record of reviewing, due-diligence and gap-analysis in preclinical to late-stage clinical pipeline product development as well as involvement in strategic partnerships between Israeli start-up companies and global industry players.