Israel Active

Israel’s Kamada is developing a treatment against the coronavirus derived from the blood-plasma of patients who have recovered from the disease and are in convalescence. Kamada says that the plasma is likely to contain antibodies that can be the basis for a vaccine.

Diagnostics.ai is a British company, but almost its entire R&D is based in Israel. The company uses Artificial Intelligence to analyze COVID-19 (or any pathogen) test results automatically. It removes the need for specialists and ensures standardization, accuracy and quality-control.

The Israeli ViriMASK Protective Oculo-Respirator shields the face and eyes from the coronavirus. It is strapped around the head, with a see-through visor and has a filtering mechanism for the nose and mouth. The device can be washed and reused and the replaceable filters last 12 hours. Available soon.

As reported previously Israeli scientists developed nano-packages of anti-cancer treatments, barcoded to identify which is the most effective. Now, Israel’s Barcode Diagnostics sends different chemo in nanoparticles and reads barcodes on the dead tumors to see which one worked best.

Israel’s Ossio has just received US FDA approval for its OSSIOfiber® Hammertoe Fixation system. The bio-integrative non-metal “intelligent” bone-regeneration implants come in 3 sizes, plus straight and angled configurations, for better customization.

Israel’s Sonovia is now in full production of its face masks that protect the wearer from the coronavirus. Sonovia will donate the first 120,000 of the new masks to the Israeli government, for use by medical workers, patients and key employees. More will be donated to other countries.

The Israel-Arab bus driver, who was critically ill from the coronavirus, is out of danger. He caught the virus from a group of Greek tourists and was treated with anti-viral medications. Chloroquine, Remdesivir and several experimental medications (see link) are being used in severe cases.

Israel’s Pluristem Therapeutics’s placenta-based cell therapy could be used to treat patients suffering from respiratory and inflammatory complications associated with coronavirus. Pluristem has launched a joint project with two Berlin-based medical institutions.

Israel’s BATM has developed a diagnostics kit to detect coronavirus from saliva samples in less than half an hour. The kit already detects SARS and MERS virus infections. BATM is now busy commercializing the kit for large-scale production.

The US FDA has given Orphan drug status to the PrimeC ALS therapy from Israel’s NeuroSense . Meanwhile, NeuroSense has begun Phase 1 human clinical trials of PrimeC at two US sites and a Phase 2a human trial at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center.