CARMEL DIAGNOSTICS LTD

Their core work

Carmel Diagnostics is an Israeli medical diagnostics SME specializing in reproductive medicine, specifically the development of diagnostic tools that improve IVF success rates. Their core technology measures oxidative stress in embryos as a biomarker to identify which embryo has the highest viability before implantation — addressing one of the most costly and emotionally difficult failure points in fertility treatment. They built the Fertissimo system, a medical device designed to give IVF clinicians an objective, measurable criterion for embryo selection beyond traditional morphological assessment. Their work sits at the intersection of clinical diagnostics, reproductive biology, and medical device commercialization.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Carmel's H2020 trajectory is not a pivot or diversification — it is a deliberate, focused product development journey along a single technology path. In 2016 they validated the concept of oxidative stress as an embryo selection biomarker through a Phase 1 feasibility study. By 2017–2020 they had secured Phase 2 funding nearly 29 times larger to build and validate the full Fertissimo medical system. There is no keyword-level shift because the mission never changed; what evolved was the maturity and scale of the product, moving from research hypothesis to clinical-grade device.

Carmel is a single-product company that has completed its EU-funded development phase, making them a likely candidate for clinical trials, regulatory approval, and commercial partnerships with IVF clinic networks or medical device distributors — not further exploratory research.

How they like to work

Carmel operates exclusively as a project coordinator, driving their own agenda rather than joining other organizations' consortia. Their network is minimal — one unique partner, one country — which is consistent with a small SME using EU funding to develop a proprietary product rather than to build a research network. Working with them likely means engaging with a tightly controlled technology owner who knows exactly what they want and is not seeking broad academic collaboration.

Carmel's H2020 network is deliberately narrow: one consortium partner across one country. This reflects the product-development nature of their EU funding rather than any interest in broad scientific networking.

What sets them apart

Carmel is one of very few SMEs to have secured both phases of the EU SME Instrument for a single reproductive diagnostics technology, which signals that their Fertissimo concept was evaluated as commercially viable by independent EU reviewers — not just internally. They occupy a specific niche at the junction of clinical embryology and diagnostic measurement, where most IVF innovation focuses on genetic screening (PGT) rather than oxidative stress markers. For any partner looking for a proprietary, EU-validated embryo diagnostic technology from an Israeli MedTech SME, Carmel is a rare and specific match.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Fertissimo (SME-2)
  At €1,446,486 this is Carmel's primary development project and one of the larger SME Instrument Phase 2 grants in reproductive medicine diagnostics, funding the full build-out of a market-ready IVF embryo selection system.
• FERTISSIMO (SME-1)
  The Phase 1 feasibility grant that preceded and de-risked the larger Phase 2 investment, demonstrating a textbook two-phase SME Instrument product launch strategy.