Nationality Israeli | ||
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Born 1 November 1950 (age 66) ( 1950-11-01 ) Israel Occupation Urologic surgeon and investor | ||
Professor Benad Goldwasser, M.D., MBA (Hebrew: בּנְעָד גוֹלְדוָוסֵר; born 1 November 1950) is a urologic surgeon, inventor, entrepreneur and venture capital investor. During his business career he served as CEO and Active Chairman in a number of healthcare related companies.
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Biography
Goldwasser was born in Israel. In 1975 he obtained his MD degree from Tel-Aviv University.
Between 1975 and 1978 Benad served in the Israeli army in a tank corp division. He is a graduate of the first officers training course for physicians and Platoon Commanders’ course of the Israeli Tank Corp. In 1982 while on reserve duty he was severely injured at Beirut Airport and was honorably discharged with the rank of Major.
After serving in the Israeli Defense Forces, he began in 1978 his urology residency at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, finishing it in 1984.
In 1984 he spent a year at Duke University Medical Center as a post-graduate fellow, and in the following year he attended another fellowship at the Mayo Clinic where he developed a technique of replacing the urinary bladder with a reconstructed segment of large bowel for patients whose bladder was removed due to invasive cancer.
Immediately upon his return to Israel in 1987 Goldwasser was appointed the Chairman of the Urology Department at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center and Professor of Surgery at Tel Aviv University. He served in this position until 1996 when he left the practice of medicine to pursuit a business career. In 1997 he obtained an MBA degree from Tel-Aviv University's School of Management.
Career
In 1993 Prof. Goldwasser co-founded Vidamed Inc., which went public on the NASDAQ two years later and was sold to Medtronic Inc.
In 1994 he co-founded Medinol Ltd., Israel’s most successful medical device company, which partnered with Boston Scientific Corporation to promote the marketing and sales of its coronary stents. That year he made a seed investment in Medcon Ltd., a company that developed medical IT products. It went public on TASE and was later acquired by McKesson Corp.
In 1995 he co-founded Rita Medical Inc., which went public on the NASDAQ in 2000, and in 1996 he co-founded Optonol Ltd., which was acquired in 2009 by Alcon Inc.
In the following year he retired from medical practice and became the managing director of Biomedical Investments Ltd., an Israeli venture capital company co-founded by Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Arison Investments, Leonard Abramson, the founder and former CEO of U.S. Healthcare, and Goldwasser himself.
The company performed several exits, including:
In 2003 Prof. Goldwasser co-founded GI View Ltd., a company that developed a self-propelled and self-navigating miniaturized colonoscope which received FDA approval and served as its CEO until 2008.
In 2013 he became an independent director at BioCancell Ltd., a TASE listed company. In the following year he was appointed chairman of the board of directors of Leadexx Ltd., a startup company creating cardiology instruments. In 2016 he was appointed director in Emerald, a publicly trading company on NASDAQ.
In 2016 Prof. Goldwasser, together with SAIL, the investment company of the Government of Shanghai, launched a $300M venture capital fund for investments in the life science arena in Israel. He acts as advisor to the fund.
That year he was also appointed the first foreign delegate of the Ibn Sino Public Foundation of Uzbekistan.
Personal life
Professor Benad Goldwasser resides in Tel Aviv, Israel with his partner, Anat Tamir. He is the father of Yonatan Goldwasser, Ph.D., a graduate of Harvard-MIT’s Health Science and Technology program.
Benad was a member of the Senate of Tel Aviv University and served on Israel’s Scientific Council. As part of his philanthropic activities Benad serves as Chairman of The Children at Risk Foundation.
Authored books and publications
During his medical and academic career Prof. Goldwasser was the author and co-author of more than 120 articles published in peer reviewed journals, and of 19 chapters in books concerning urology. He was also a co-editor of two books on the subject of reconstructive urology.
Special interests
Prof. Goldwasser has a special interest in bioethics and pursues the study of history and moral and political philosophy. He also attended Tel-Aviv University law school for a year in order to elaborate his knowledge in this field.