Israel Active

Kibbutz Hatzerim is famous for founding drip-irrigation innovator Netafim. It has now co-founded Picodya - developer of the B-Matrix in vitro diagnostics (IVD) platform. B-Matrix gives 15-30min test results for cancer, cardiac dysfunction and viruses (including Covid).

Israel-headquartered Lumenis (reported previously) has launched a superior version 2.0 of its Moses platform for minimal and non-invasive laser removal of urinary (bladder) stones and other stones.

Tel Aviv University researchers reduced secondary cancer following colorectal tumor removal. Deralin and Etopan were given before and after surgery. 3 years later the cancer had spread significantly less than in a control group. Now pancreatic cancer patients will be tested. (latest trial) (2017 trial on breast cancer patients)

Israel’s KAHR Medical has received US FDA approval to begin Phase 1 & 2 clinical (human) trials of its DSP107 treatment of advanced solid tumors (reported previously). The trials will assess DSP107 both by itself and in combination with Roche’s atezolizumab.

This 30-minute video features Israel’s Dr. Tal Zaks - chief medical officer of Moderna, a front-runner in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine. He summarizes the progress of the latest trial, and how his education at BGU’s Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School shaped his career.

Professor Zeev Rotstein, CEO of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, has revealed that its clinic in Skolkovo, Moscow is involved in clinical safety trials of the new Russian Covid-19 vaccine. Phase 3 trials are still ongoing, even while Russia’s President Putin inoculated his family.

Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion and Hebrew Universities have found that vaccinations given against Tuberculosis (BCGs) in the last 15 years reduced death rates and infection rates in COVID-19 patients under 24 years of age. Data from 55 countries was analyzed.

Israel’s Pluristem Therapeutics (reported previously) has been approved by German’s health regulatory authority to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial of its PLX PAD stem cells on 40 serious Covid-19 patients. Pluristem is already conducting a 140-patient Phase 2 trial in the US.

As reported previously, Aviptadil from Israel’s NeuroRx, is undergoing Phase 2/3 trials in Israel and the US. The adapted treatment, now known as RLF-100, prevents Covid-19 replication and has already significantly improved the health of 15 emergency cases in the US.

A bullet from Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha celebrations hit a 9-year-old Arab boy in the head. At Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, Israeli neurosurgeons removed the bullet from deep inside the boy’s brain. Two days after the surgery, the boy was eating, talking and moving his limbs.