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Industry brief · Biotech

Biotech, from Israeli life sciences to mosquito control

This brief follows biotech through the work of our guest Vic Levitin, whose company Diptera.ai, he says, uses computer vision to sort mosquitoes so that sterile males can be released to suppress disease-carrying populations. It covers Israel and Thailand: life sciences funding, AI and public incentives, plus the rules, players and evidence that shape mosquito control.

IsraelThailand
Checked 20 Oct 2026 · every figure linked to its source · next review Jan 2027

01At a glance

$1.6B

invested in Israeli life sciences companies in 2025, more than 90% of it private, a 40% drop after a recovery in 2024, according to IATI and the Israel Innovation Authority1

Life sciences covers biomed, medical devices and digital health, not biotech alone
81,000

workers in Israel's life sciences industry. Biomed companies make up about 30% of its companies but employ more than half of them2

$115M

raised by Israeli life sciences companies on US stock exchanges in 2025, down more than 80%, with again no life sciences IPOs on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange3

$1.7B

of pharmaceuticals exported by Israeli life sciences companies in 2025, alongside about $3.3 billion of medical equipment, similar to 20244

10 yrs

of corporate income tax exemption, with no cap, for 'biotechnology development' in group A1+ of Thailand's BOI Investment Promotion Guide 20255

Conditions apply, including technology transfer with a Board-approved educational or research institute

02How AI is reshaping it

AI and drug development in Israel

~30

Israeli companies work at the meeting point of AI and drug development, roughly 70% of them backed by the Israel Innovation Authority, the IATI report says6

The same report says about 12% of recent pharma-biotech collaborations worldwide are AI-driven, worth about $30 billion combined6.

AI's share of Israeli tech money

35%

of all investments in Israeli high-tech went to Core AI companies, the Israel Innovation Authority's State of High Tech 2026 report says7

This share covers all Israeli high-tech, not biotech. The report does not give an AI share for life sciences.

03Where the money is moving

Israeli life sciences: harder to raise

In 2025 private investment in Israeli life sciences fell to its lowest level in five years, and the average deal size kept shrinking, to below $10 million8. Investment in medical devices fell by more than 60%, while biomed investment stayed stable over the past three years9.

$1,327M

in acquisitions and IPOs of Israeli life sciences companies across seven deals in 2025, excluding follow-on offerings, according to PwC Israel exit data in the IATI and Israel Innovation Authority report10

Funds naming fundraising as the main challenge for life sciences companies

2023
52%
2025
74%

In a fund survey in the IATI and Israel Innovation Authority report, 74% of funds named fundraising as the main challenge for life sciences companies in 2025, compared with 52% in 2023, and 57% expect a cautious recovery in 202611.

Survey sample size not stated. All figures in this panel cover Israeli life sciences, which includes biomed, medical devices and digital health; the report does not break out biotech.

Israeli tech overall and public money

$14.6B

raised by Israeli tech companies in 2025, up 30% on 2024, even as the number of funding rounds kept falling and small rounds under $10 million hit a ten-year low12

NIS 560M

invested by the Israel Innovation Authority in HealthTech in 2025, about 29% of its total investments. Its Startup Fund allocated more than 45% of its investments, about NIS 250 million, to HealthTech13

Thailand: investment applications, not biotech totals

  • All sectors, 2025. Thailand's Board of Investment received a record 3,370 project applications worth Bt1.876 trillion, with total value up 67%. The digital industry, driven mainly by data centres, drew the largest share14.
  • Medical, 2025. Medical businesses (medical devices and healthcare services) drew Bt28,883 million of BOI investment applications across 101 projects15.
  • First half of 2026. The BOI received applications worth $43.6 billion across 1,299 projects, up 37% year on year. Agriculture and food processing took $1.82 billion across 131 projects16.
These are applications, not money invested. The BOI does not break out biotech: medical businesses include hospitals, and agriculture and food processing is not biotech.

04What governments are changing

  1. Thailand. The cabinet approved an action plan to drive bio-, circular and green (BCG) economic development from 2022 to 2027, with a total budget of almost 41 billion baht17. That is a planned budget, not spending.
  2. Thailand. The BOI's Investment Promotion Guide 2025 lists 'biotechnology development' in incentive group A1+, a 10-year corporate income tax exemption with no cap, with conditions including technology transfer with an educational institution or research institute approved by the Board5.
  3. Israel. The Innovation Authority launched a Deep-Tech Funds Incentive Program under YOZMA, worth about NIS 250 million (roughly $70 million). Funds get a grant of up to 12.5% of their size, capped at $10 million per fund, for sectors such as semiconductors, energy, climate, quantum computing and health18. Biotech is not named on its own.
  4. Israel. The Innovation Authority and the Ministry of Health launched what they call a first-of-its-kind regulatory pilot to evaluate autonomous AI systems in healthcare19.
  5. Thailand. On 8 September the Cabinet approved in principle a draft Startup Business Promotion Act. Eligible startups would get five years of rights and benefits, and up to 10 years for those using deep technology in agriculture or other designated fields. The draft is to be reviewed by the Office of the Council of State20. It is a draft bill, not law.

05The rules and players every mosquito-control company works with

Rules and guidance

  1. WHO. A WHO release called the sterile insect technique 'a form of insect birth control' and said new guidance from TDR and the IAEA, developed with WHO and FAO, recommends a phased approach that allows time to test its efficacy21.
  2. Brazil. Releases of Wolbachia mosquitoes in Niterói were approved by three federal bodies: the health regulator ANVISA, the agriculture ministry MAPA and the environment agency IBAMA, which issued a temporary special registry22.
  3. United States. The EPA extended Oxitec's experimental use permit for genetically engineered OX5034 Aedes aegypti mosquitoes on 5,360 acres of Monroe County, Florida, until 30 April 2024, and expanded it to 29,400 acres in four California counties23.
  4. Thailand. Seed World reported in August 2024 that the Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives had signed a regulation to facilitate the safe development and commercial use of genome-edited plants, animals and microorganisms in agriculture24.
  5. Thailand. Daily News reported in August 2026 that a Department of Disease Control position paper dated 21 May 2025 recognised Wolbachia's potential for controlling Aedes mosquitoes but said Thailand did not yet have a policy to use it as a main measure, because more study of its effectiveness and possible impacts was needed25. Daily News also reported that the paper said no Thai agency yet had the capacity to produce Wolbachia mosquitoes in large quantities, and that releasing mosquitoes involves several agencies and several legal provisions26.
The Thai items are Daily News's account of a paper we could not read, and they concern Wolbachia mosquitoes, not sterile-male releases.

Players and scale

  • Senecio Robotics. The European Commission awarded the Israeli sterile-insect company $12 million, in equity and grant, in December 2020 to build an AI-driven automated mosquito factory27.
  • Wolbito do Brasil. The World Mosquito Program calls it the world's largest Wolbachia mosquito biofactory. It launched in Curitiba in July 2025 with capacity to produce 100 million mosquito eggs a week, initially for the exclusive use of Brazil's Ministry of Health28.
  • Oxitec. AFP reported in November 2024 that Oxitec had released well over one billion GM mosquitoes in Brazil and Florida, and that Djibouti had begun weekly releases of GM mosquitoes against malaria on 6 October 202429.
  • Farm pests in Thailand. TINT operates a fruit fly mass-rearing facility in Nakhon Nayok province, and SIT is actively applied in a low-prevalence area in Chanthaburi province, according to the FAO/IAEA Insect Pest Control Newsletter30.
  • Farm pests in Israel. From 1998 a pilot programme set up with the IAEA and FAO released as many as 15 million sterile male medflies a week in Israel and Jordan. The IAEA said bell pepper exports from Israel's Arava Valley rose from $1 million to $50 million a year over the programme's seven years31.
Capacity and release counts are the operators' or the wire's figures. The medfly programme ran in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

06What the evidence on mosquito releases shows

Fewer mosquitoes

A 2020 Nature Biotechnology paper said the sterile insect technique had worked against farm pests at large scale but not mosquitoes, mainly because consistent production of high-quality males was hard. Using automated processes to rear and release sterile male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, the team found 95.5% fewer female Aedes aegypti at peak season in release areas of Fresno County, California, than in non-release areas32.

In a peer-reviewed proof-of-concept in a village in Chachoengsao province, eastern Thailand, six months of releasing sterile male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, produced by combining radiation with Wolbachia, cut the mean number of females per household by 97.3% compared with control areas. The authors said a randomised trial is needed to show any effect on disease33.

Less dengue

A cluster-randomised trial in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2017-2020), published in NEJM in 2021, found Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes cut dengue incidence by 77% and dengue hospitalisations by 86% versus untreated clusters34.

A 2025 observational study found notified dengue incidence in Niterói, Brazil, was 89% lower after city-wide Wolbachia releases than in the 2007-2016 pre-intervention decade35.

None of these studies tested Diptera.ai's method. The Fresno and Chachoengsao results count mosquitoes, not disease, and both used Wolbachia-infected sterile males. The Yogyakarta and Niterói results are for Wolbachia replacement, not sterile males; the Niterói study is observational and its authors worked for the World Mosquito Program.

07Trends to watch

Israeli life sciences money is harder to raise

About $1.6 billion was invested in Israeli life sciences companies in 2025, a 40% drop after a recovery in 20241. Private investment fell to its lowest level in five years and the average deal size fell below $10 million8. In the report's fund survey, 74% of funds named fundraising as the main challenge, compared with 52% in 202311.

AI is pulling in the money

The Israel Innovation Authority says 35% of all investments in Israeli high-tech went to Core AI companies7. About 30 Israeli companies work at the meeting point of AI and drug development, and the IATI report says about 12% of recent pharma-biotech collaborations worldwide are AI-driven6.

Thailand's biotech incentives are offers on paper

The BOI lists biotechnology development in group A1+, a 10-year corporate income tax exemption with no cap5. A draft Startup Business Promotion Act would give startups using deep technology in agriculture or other designated fields up to 10 years of benefits20. One is a promotion category and the other a draft bill, so neither shows money spent.

Mosquito factories are getting bigger

Wolbito do Brasil, which the World Mosquito Program calls the world's largest Wolbachia mosquito biofactory, launched in July 2025 with capacity to produce 100 million mosquito eggs a week28. AFP reported in November 2024 that Oxitec had released well over one billion GM mosquitoes in Brazil and Florida29. Both counts come from the operator or the wire.

The test is disease, not mosquito counts

A 2019 WHO release said new guidance recommends a phased approach to the sterile insect technique, with epidemiological indicators to monitor its impact on disease transmission21. The authors of the Chachoengsao sterile-male study said a randomised trial is needed to show any effect on disease33. The randomised Yogyakarta trial that did measure dengue tested Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, not sterile males34.

08The problems our guests are solving

Vic Levitin on Building Real
Israel, Thailand

EP10Vic Levitin · Diptera.ai

700,000+

deaths a year are caused by vector-borne diseases, which include malaria and dengue and account for more than 17% of all infectious diseases, according to WHO36

21,620

dengue cases and 31 deaths were recorded in Thailand between 1 January and 19 August 2026, a deputy director-general of the Department of Disease Control said37

Diptera.ai raised a $3 million seed round in June 2021, led by Trust Ventures with IndieBio and Fresh.fund, to sell sterile insect technique as a subscription service38. The Israel-US BIRD Foundation, which invested in the project, later said Diptera.ai had completed a sterile insect system for Anopheles malaria mosquitoes, covering rearing, sorting, sterilisation, marking and AI-driven monitoring. BIRD said the system was validated on live mosquito populations in Kenya and a second African country, and that the company was preparing for widescale field trials across Sub-Saharan Africa39.

The dengue count is for part of 2026 only. The BIRD item is a funder relaying a company milestone; no field results have been published.

Vic says Diptera.ai uses computer vision to sex-sort mosquitoes at the larval stage, so that sterile males can be mass-produced and released to suppress wild populations. In the episode he describes building CrazyLister, an e-commerce listing platform, burning out and moving into biotech with no background in it, first funding Diptera by reframing malaria control as suburban US pest relief, and rebuilding the company from Thailand after war broke out.

Watch the episode →

See how these conversations connect on the Discovery Atlas →

09Sources

One research agent gathered 40 figures from government, regulator and established data sources. A separate red-team agent then reopened every source, checked each number, its scope and its date, and looked for newer or conflicting data. It kept 17 figures as written, corrected 23 and cut 0. Each figure above links to its source below, with the date it refers to.

  1. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · Calendar year 2025 (report published June 2026)
  2. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025 (report published June 2026)
  3. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025
  4. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025
  5. Thailand Board of Investment: Investment Promotion Guide 2025, Section 1 · Investment Promotion Guide 2025
  6. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025-26 report
  7. Israel Innovation Authority: State of High Tech 2026 press release (31 May 2026) · 2025 fundraising
  8. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025
  9. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025 (three-year comparison 2023-2025)
  10. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26, full report (July 2026) · 2025
  11. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · Survey for 2025 (sample size not stated)
  12. Israel Innovation Authority: State of High Tech 2026 press release (31 May 2026) · Calendar year 2025
  13. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2025
  14. The Nation (Thailand), 26 Jan 2026, reporting BOI figures · Calendar year 2025 (applications)
  15. The Nation (Thailand), 26 Jan 2026, reporting BOI figures · 2025 (applications)
  16. Thailand Board of Investment press release No. 117/2569 (23 Jul 2026) · H1 2026 (applications)
  17. Bangkok Post (9 Feb 2022) · Plan 2022-2027, approved Feb 2022 (planned budget, not spending)
  18. Israel Innovation Authority press release (9 Sep 2025) · Launched Sep 2025 (programme size)
  19. IATI and Israel Innovation Authority (with PwC Israel): Life Sciences and Health-Tech Industry Report 2025-26 press release (June 2026) · 2026
  20. The Nation (Thailand), 8 Sep 2026 · Draft bill; Cabinet in-principle approval 8 Sep 2026
  21. WHO news release (14 Nov 2019) · 14 Nov 2019
  22. Anders et al., Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (Aug 2025) · Approvals from 2017
  23. US EPA news release (7 Mar 2022) · March 2022 (permit ran to 30 Apr 2024)
  24. Seed World (13 Aug 2024) · Signed 2024
  25. Daily News (Thailand), 14 Aug 2026 · Position paper dated 21 May 2025, as reported 14 Aug 2026
  26. Daily News (Thailand), 14 Aug 2026 · Position paper dated 21 May 2025, as reported 14 Aug 2026
  27. Globes (16 Dec 2020) · December 2020
  28. World Mosquito Program (23 Jul 2025) · Launched July 2025 (capacity, not output)
  29. AFP via Kuwait Times (21 Nov 2024) · As reported Nov 2024
  30. FAO/IAEA Insect Pest Control Newsletter No. 106 (January 2026) · Visit during training course, 27-31 Oct 2025
  31. UN News, citing the IAEA (c. May 2005) · Programme 1998 to c.2005
  32. Crawford et al., Nature Biotechnology (April 2020), abstract via University of Kentucky Scholars · 2018 field trial; published April 2020
  33. Kittayapong et al., PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (28 Oct 2019) · 6-month field release; published Oct 2019
  34. World Mosquito Program summary of Utarini et al., NEJM (2021) · Trial 2017-2020; published 2021
  35. Anders et al., Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (Aug 2025) · Releases 2017-2019 and 2023; published Aug 2025
  36. WHO fact sheet: Vector-borne diseases (26 Sep 2024) · WHO fact sheet, 26 Sep 2024 (annual estimate)
  37. Hfocus (August 2026), quoting the Department of Disease Control · 1 Jan-19 Aug 2026 (partial year)
  38. Calcalist CTech (10 Jun 2021) · June 2021
  39. BIRD Foundation news item (undated page; linked press release 8 Dec 2025) · Announced December 2025