Mr. Israel Makov is among Israel’s most respected corporate leaders. He specializes in the pharma and medical devices industries and has led many companies to global success.
Working in the pharma industry since 1974, he founded Israel’s first biotech company, Interpharm, which partnered with the Weizmann Institute in the development of several commercial drugs.
In 1995, he joined Teva Pharmaceutical Industries as VP for Business Development and was appointed president and CEO of the company in 2002. Under his leadership, Teva became the undisputed global leader in the generic pharmaceutical industry and a global leader in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, based on Copaxone® – a Weizmann-developed drug that is now approved for use in 51 countries worldwide.
After Teva, Mr. Makov was chairman of the Netafim irrigation solutions company and of Given Imaging, the developer and world’s leading provider of capsule endoscopy, a pill that travels through the gastrointestinal tract, sending clear images to the physician.
In the last decade, he was chairman of Sun Pharma and played a significant role in the company’s global expansion. He guided the company into its next phase of growth with a focus on innovation and adoption of newer technologies. Under his leadership, Sun Pharma transformed from a $1.7 billion organization geared toward India and the United States into the world’s fourth largest specialty generic pharmaceutical company, operating across over 100 markets, with a turnover of over $5 billion. Leading the company’s global expansion, Mr. Makov spearheaded the acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories in 2014, making Sun Pharma the leader in the Indian pharmaceutical market and a strong player globally. He also helped steer the company toward a strategy of building a global pipeline of specialty products.
Mr. Makov currently serves as chairman of BioLight, a leading ophthalmic company that invests in companies and manages projects in the field of eye disease and ocular treatment. He is also chairman of QuantalX Neuroscience, a company developing direct electrophysiological imaging (Delphi-MD) for early, precise and objective evaluation of brain function, and of Nextage Therapeutics, a pharma company that develops next-generation cannabinoid-based products.
A native of Rehovot and descendent of one of its founding families, Mr. Makov has a deep connection to the Weizmann Institute. He married his late wife Nira – then a Weizmann employee – on the rooftop of the San Martin Guesthouse. Mr. Makov is a member of the International and Executive Boards of the Institute as well as many Board committees. He is also a director at Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd., the Weizmann Institute’s technology transfer arm.
Mr. Makov believes in the power of philanthropy to bolster Israel’s cultural, biomedical and academic excellence. At the Weizmann Institute, he facilitated a major gift from Sun Pharma in support of equipment for the de Picciotto Cancer Cell Observatory in Memory of Wolfgang and Ruth Lesser at the Moross Integrated Cancer Center. He also recently supported research in the lab of Dr. Ivo Spiegel of the Brain Sciences Department. In other capacities, he is the chairman of Gesher Theatre in Tel Aviv and serves on the Board of Governors of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
Israel Makov resides in Tel Aviv with his spouse, Bella Lustig. He has three children and eight grandchildren, one of whom is an MSc student at the Weizmann Institute.