A handful of medical devices companies from Israel, claimed to be a major innovation group for the sector, are looking ahead to collaborate with Indian medical devices firms in a wide spectrum of areas including marketing in South East Asia.

In a business delegation, organised by the Consulate of Israel to tour major cities in the country, eight Israel firms are looking out options to tie up with Indian medical devices companies. The partnership options varies from setting up marketing tie ups for Indian and South Asian markets to partnering in product development activities, according to Consulate sources.

Israel, though known for its efficiency in innovative research, often succumbs to the market pressure by global majors in electronics and medical devices segment, as patent rights for most of their innovations are bought out by these big firms.

However, some companies rather opt to go ahead with their new product directly to the market than selling the rights to big firms and such companies are interested to tie-up with the growing Indian medical devices industry for mutual growth. The Government of Israel's efforts are to support the start up firms, which would like to sustain in the market with their own products and to expand its reach to the East of the globe, they added.

"Israel already have its established presence in US and European market. We have been trying to shift our focus to the East now, with more emphasis on the fast emerging countries especially in Asia," said an official with the Consulate. He added that the Israel medical devices industry exported almost US$ 6 billion, mainly to the US and European countries, in 2009.

Out of the nearly 1000 companies existing in the Life sciences industry in Israel more than 40 per cent are start ups. The innovation in the country is driven by the highly advanced research conducted for defense purposes, said sources.

The delegation had representation from Tuttnauer, a sterilization and infection control firm which already has its distribution tie-up and office in India, 2P2D Solutions working in telemedicine segment, Alpha Bio Tec in dental products, Deep Breeze in respiratory equipments, EasyGlide in gastrointestinal products, Nicast in vascular and hemodialysis segment, Biological Signal Processing in cardiovascular segment and Elitr Advanced Systems in multiple therapeutic segments.

According to a recent report from the Espicom, a business intelligence major, the medical device market in Israel is estimated to be worth US$ 792 million in 2010 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 2.2 per cent to reach reach US$ 885 million,by 2015.