Israel Active

Israel has budgeted NIS 55 million for hospitals and health organizations etc., to build the digital infrastructure required for anonymized medical data sharing. It will spearhead major advances in groundbreaking research and innovative development by Israeli healthcare startups and research scientists.

Some more innovative Israeli healthcare startups. Those not previously reported in this newsletter are medFlyt (caregiver management) and Sivan Innovation (Moovcare patient / physician communications)

CB Insights has named nine Israeli-based health-tech startups in its 2021 Top 150 Digital Health Companies transforming healthcare. They include , , , B.Well, , , , and .   (Hebrew)

Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have identified the complex way that plant bacteria fight off infections from viruses known as phages. A protein in the bacteria calls another protein to destroy a molecule inside itself that the phage needs to replicate. The cell dies but it stops the infection.

Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has begun the first study in the world of the efficacy of administering a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The 6,000 participants include 150 medical personnel who had a 3rd dose in August. They will receive the Pfizer vaccine.

Back in 2013 (see previously) Tel Aviv University researchers found that the sugar substitute mannitol could protect the brain against Parkinson’s disease. But a trial could not get funding. So, entrepreneur and Parkinson’s sufferer Dan Vesely co-founded and crowdfunded CliniCrowd.

Israel’s Pharma Two B (see in 2015) has successfully completed the Phase 3 human trial of its P2B001 treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. The trial met its primary and key secondary endpoints, and the company can now prepare for US FDA approval.

18 COVID-19 patients hospitalized with moderate or severe symptoms were treated with Amor-18 from Israel’s Amorphical (see previously). All recovered and were discharged in a few days.

Israel’s Binah.ai (see previously) has come a long way in the last 18 months. Some 50 million customers of the world’s top insurance companies now use Binah’s remote health and wellness monitoring platform to measure vital signs, from the changes in the reflection of light on facial skin.

Israel’s AiVF (see previously) has received regulatory approval to sell its IVF analysis platform product in the United Kingdom - one of the largest IVF markets in Europe. It can predict, without the need for a biopsy, whether a given embryo is genetically suitable for transfer.