Pathways to Bioeconomy and Bioconvergence Perspectives from Serbia and Israel 2025

Enhancing multidisciplinary R&D infrastructure Government leadership is instrumental in promoting emerging fields in the fast-paced innovation landscape. The Israel Innovation Authority has been taking decisive action, laying the groundwork for bioconvergence. Through targeted investments in multidisciplinary R&D infrastructures, the government cultivates collaborative hubs that support industry. These facilities, equipped with cutting-edge tools and expert support, drive cross-sector partnerships, accelerate breakthrough discoveries and ensure these discoveries translate into real-world applications. They demonstrate how strategic public intervention can drive technological and economic impact. The following examples illustrate how this approach is being implemented across key infrastructure projects: –YDLabs: Established in 2022, YDLabs operates Israel’s first fermentation pilot for food technology and agricultural technology. Its multidisciplinary team supports scale-up to 1,000 litres, optimizing production processes for sustainable, high-yield biomanufacturing. –Alagene: This synthetic biology platform uses the “design, build, test, learn” (DBTL) model to engineer fungi, bacteria and yeast. It offers R&D services and expert consultation in product development, regulation and intellectual property (IP), advancing biotechnology applications in health, food, energy and agriculture. –Bio-chips: Currently in development, BioChip infrastructure will support R&D for bio-devices in health, agriculture and the environment. Once established, it will be equipped with chip fabrication technology, bioprinters, wet labs and prototyping tools to enable the development of smart implants, microfluidics, sensors and other technologies.Progressive enabling regulation The Disruptive Innovation Program provides technology companies with a regulatory sandbox to develop and validate bioconvergence technologies, easing market entry through early regulatory support. By enabling facilitative regulation and consultation pilots with the Ministry of Health, the programme accelerates clinical development and helps companies overcome global regulatory barriers. –SpotitEarly combines the scent detection abilities of trained dogs with AI and machine learning (ML) for breath-based diagnostics. This approach faces regulatory challenges, as no similar canine-based cancer tests exist in the US, complicating Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. To support this, Israel’s Ministry of Health is developing clinical validation guidelines and quality standards for the biological components while addressing the AI aspects of SpotitEarly’s LUCID platform to ensure safety and transparency. –Precise Bio fabricates tissues from human cells and natural materials to address the shortage of donor tissue and unmet therapeutic needs. Its initial focus is on ophthalmology. The platform integrates cell biology, biomaterials, engineering and clinical aspects to create transplantable tissues. Precise products are regulated as “combination products” or biologics license applications (BLAs). Since this project is the “first in the world” to transplant a 3D bio-printed cornea, the regulatory aspect has been a significant challenge. Close collaboration with the Israel Ministry of Health over the last year and a half has facilitated a clear path towards the clinic. Israel’s bioconvergence ecosystem has undergone remarkable growth, evolving into a dynamic hub of interdisciplinary innovation. Over the past decade, Israel’s bioconvergence ecosystem has undergone remarkable growth, evolving into a dynamic hub of interdisciplinary innovation. Since 2015, the number of companies operating in the field has increased fivefold – from approximately 30 to over 160 today (Figure 12). This expansion reflects a strategic national focus on integrating biology with engineering, data science and advanced technologies. As shown in Figure 13, health technologies represent the largest share at 51.5%, followed by food technologies (22.1%) and agriculture technologies (12.9%). Smaller shares are seen in the industrial (8.0%), sustainability and environment (4.3%), and lifestyle (1.2%) sectors. This distribution reflects the field’s broad applicability as well as its potential to address diverse global needs through a multidisciplinary approach.2.4 Israel’s bioconvergence sector: a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem Pathways to Bioeconomy and Bioconvergence 24