Building bridges in health innovation

ARC Innovation at Sheba Medical Centre and the Australian Society for Medical Entrepreneurship & Innovation (ASME) have entered into a strategic collaboration to strengthen clinician-led innovation and healthcare entrepreneurship in Australia.

ASME, founded in 2023, is Australia’s first not-for-profit society dedicated to empowering clinicians to innovate and to build enterprises that advance healthcare. It serves as a national hub for clinician-entrepreneurs, fostering education, mentorship and ecosystem development across hospitals, universities and industry.

ARC Innovation (Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate) is the world-renowned digital health and innovation ecosystem that originated at Sheba Medical Centre in Israel. Launched in 2019, ARC’s mission is to transform healthcare through global collaboration and the rapid translation of innovative ideas into real-world impact. Sheba has recently established ARC centres in London, France, Belgium, Berlin, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada and will soon establish one in Melbourne.

The model involves bringing together physicians, researchers, startups and industry leaders to accelerate the commercialisation of medical innovations. Among its flagship initiatives is the SPARC program, a structured accelerator that equips clinicians and healthcare professionals with the skills, mentorship and frameworks to develop and commercialise new health technologies and models of care.

Under this new Memorandum of Understanding, ASME has been appointed the preferred delivery partner for SPARC programs in Australia. The agreement establishes a multi-year framework through which ASME will lead the recruitment of Australian clinicians, local program delivery, logistics and co-promotion of SPARC initiatives. ARC Innovation will provide access to its global SPARC curriculum, digital platform, and international network of mentors and speakers.

The collaboration will allow Australian clinicians to learn directly from global healthcare innovators and to accelerate their ventures with both local and international support.

Through this collaboration, ASME and ARC are empowering a new generation of clinician-

innovators to identify unmet clinical needs, develop practical solutions, and deliver impact on a global scale.

Dr Brandon Carp, president of ASME commented, “This partnership with ARC Innovation at Sheba Medical Centre brings one of the world’s most respected health innovation ecosystems to Australia.

“Through the SPARC program, we’re empowering clinicians to move from ideas to impact – to take the challenges they see every day in practice and turn them into solutions that improve patient care.

“By combining ASME’s deep local networks with ARC’s proven global model, we’re building a powerful bridge between Israel and Australia in clinician-led innovation. Together, we’re creating opportunities for Australian doctors and health professionals to connect with world-class mentors, access cutting-edge frameworks, and accelerate ventures that can transform healthcare.”

Discussing his desire to bring SPARC to Australia, Carp told The AJN, “They’ve got an amazing program there. I was over in Israel a few years ago and saw it in real life. And in fact, from the sparc program have spawned a number of really valuable businesses in health tech.

“The concept of clinician-led innovation is … not just about improving health care for patients, which is obviously critically important, it … can actually fuel the economy, as it’s done in Israel, and we see that it’s a great opportunity to do that here again in Australia.”

The partnership is driven by a common purpose to improve healthcare for all.

“We see that it’s very important to try and rebuild, or at least strengthen, the bridge between Australia and Israel,” said Carp. “And we think there is nothing more common than the common purpose of improving health care for humanity.”