Israel Active

The Israeli government is to set up a new national laboratory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for the study of viruses. It will help Israel counter pathogens after the Covid-19 pandemic. It will have special air conditioning, advanced testing tools and high-level protective gear.

11 of the 12 trial patients treated with the IgG Covid-19 treatment from Israel’s Kamada (reported previously) have now recovered and been discharged from hospital.

Doctors at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center are to test the use of low-dosage radiation on 30 severe Covid-19 patients. It is expected to reduce the inflammatory cells that invade the lungs of coronavirus patients and prevent them from oxygenating the blood.

Barts Health, one of the largest providers to the UK’s National Health Service, has selected the ColonFlag software from Israel’s Medial EarlySign (reported previously) to identify members at high risk for developing colon cancer – the UK’s 4th most common cancer.

Israel’s Pluristem (reported previously) has launched an FDA-cleared Covid-19 expanded access program. It enables Pluristem to use its PLX-PAD cells to treat up to 100 more infected patients outside its current trials in the USA and Europe and compassionate use in Israel.

Israel’s Elicio Therapeutics has published the results of a pre-clinical study of its ELI-005 protein subunit vaccine for Covid-19. It extended the life of coronavirus antibodies and may resolve the problem whereby patients who recover from the virus can be re-infected if later exposed to it.

Technion’s Hossam Haick, the Israeli-Arab Professor who invented the Sniffphone cancer detector (reported previously) has led the development of another Israeli coronavirus breathalyzer test (see for previous). The rest of his team is in Wuhan, China where Covid-19 likely originated.

The US FDA has approved the use of the Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) system from Israel’s BrainsWay to treat cigarette smokers who seek to quit. The patient wears a helmet containing a patented H-coil that generates a magnetic field for 20-minutes.

Israel’s Mediwound (reported previously) has delivered its first batch of its Nexobrid treatment for burns to BARDA (the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) for the US Department of Health’s emergency response preparedness.

Israel’s DayTwo (reported previously) won the 2020 Roche Diabetes Care Innovation Contest. Its virtual pitch convinced the judges that its personalized nutrition solution, using microbiome data, could best integrate with Roche Diabetes Care.