Does AstraZeneca support Israel?

Operates in Israel through AstraZeneca (Israel) Ltd., established at the end of 2008 and based in Kfar Saba, employing over 100 people in sales, marketing and medical & regulatory affairs. The company's own country site describes AstraZeneca Israel as an active part of its global Health Innovation Hubs network alongside the US, China, Sweden and France.

Signed a memorandum of understanding with the Israeli Ministry of Economy and the Israel Innovation Authority, committing to invest in biotech and digital health in Israel by deepening collaboration with Israeli industry, academia and government. Globes reported the signing on 16 May 2018 from the Mixiii Biomed 2018 conference in Tel Aviv, quoting economy minister Eli Cohen and AstraZeneca Israel's then chief executive Hila Nisani. AstraZeneca's own Israel country site and Ctech instead date the MOU to May 2019; the contemporaneous report is the earlier and more specific account, and both statements are recorded here. The company's BeyondBio Health Innovation Hub in Israel is the fulfilment of that MOU, and its PlayBeyondBio start-up collaboration program runs in partnership with JVP, Yozma Leumit (II2020), Maccabi healthcare, Shaare Zedek medical center, Microsoft and Cisco. AstraZeneca Israel also lists a collaboration with Sheba Medical Center.

Israel contracted to buy about 10 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, enough for roughly 5 million citizens. A joint statement by the company, the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Health, reported on 20 November 2020, said the doses would be sold to Israel at no profit for the duration of the pandemic — the company's global equitable-access policy rather than an Israel-specific arrangement — and AstraZeneca Israel chief executive Ohad Goldberg called the agreement historic. This was a sale to the Israeli government, not a donation, and no financial terms were disclosed. Globes reported on 22 April 2021 that the Health Ministry's director general, Prof. Hezi Levi, and the national coronavirus coordinator, Prof. Nachman Ash, said Israel would not use the vaccine and was seeking to cancel the order.

Became a founding partner — alongside Merck, Pfizer, Teva, Amazon Web Services and the Israel Biotech Fund — of AION Labs, an AI-driven drug-discovery venture lab launched in October 2021 in the Rehovot Science Park under a tender initiated by the Israel Innovation Authority; start-ups created at the lab receive a minimum of $2 million in funding plus mentorship from the partners.

Signed a further agreement with the Israel Innovation Authority, reported by the Israeli news site ice on 29 May 2024 after a signing event the previous week attended by AstraZeneca Israel chief executive Ohad Goldberg, the company's senior vice-president for Europe and Canada Stefan Woxström, Sweden's ambassador to Israel and Britain's trade commissioner for Europe. The money is the Israeli state's, not the company's: the Authority funds the selected Israeli start-ups developing health technologies, while AstraZeneca contributes mentoring by its medical, development, technology and regulatory experts. Participants are picked by AstraZeneca, the consultancy Accenture and Clalit Health Services. ice presented the timing as the significant part — the agreement was signed while the war was under way and amid fears of an academic and scientific boycott of Israel — and Goldberg described it as an expression of the company's confidence in the Israeli ecosystem, born of the earlier BeyondBio programme.

Set up the "Beam — Illuminating Healthcare Through Data" research center in Tel Aviv with the School of Public Health and School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and the Leumit and Meuhedet health funds — the second research center of its kind AstraZeneca has established worldwide — to study anonymized Israeli health data for drug research and development.