Israel Active

Israel has moved up from 7th to 6th in the world ranking for its achievement of having an average life-expectancy of 82.5 whilst spending only 7.9% of its GDP on Health.  In comparison, the USA has an average life-expectancy of 79 but spends 16.8% of GDP on Health.

Israel’s Beck Medical has developed NozNoz – a silicon nasal insert that curbs the appetite by blocking the senses of smell and taste. The effect is to prevent stimulating the body’s olfactory bulb that controls hunger and food preferences. NozNoz is comparable to contact lenses for the nose.

Israeli startup ICI Vision has developed Orama - digital glasses to help the visually impaired to see more clearly. Orama uses artificial intelligence (AI), eye-tracking software, a built-in 3D camera and more, to map and project images onto an individual’s remaining healthy retina cells.

Israeli startup Trisol Medical is developing a minimally invasive device that can replace a faulty tricuspid heart valve. The tricuspid valve is known as the “forgotten valve” as other bio-techs have focused efforts developing replacements for the aortic and mitral valves.

Conventional treatment of bladder stones uses a laser that causes the stone to be repelled, extending the time taken to destroy it. Israeli biotech Lumenis’ laser technology (named “Moses”) keeps the stone in place, saving time, anesthesia and money.  Nice simple video demonstrates this.

The US FDA’s oncology committee has approved CT-P10 – Teva’s monoclonal antibody biosimilar to Rituxan (rituximab) for the treatment of various forms of cancer. The development of biosimilars has the potential to increase accessibility to therapies for patients.

I reported previously on Israel’s Aidoc whose AI image software helps radiologists in fast detection of acute brain bleeds in CT scans. Aidoc’s system has now received US FDA approval and is currently in use at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center.

An Iraqi baby born with a congenital heart defect is being flown to Israel for life-saving surgery after an emergency appeal to Israel’s Interior Ministry. Baby Ahlam, from Iraqi Kurdistan, suffers from the reversal of the main arteries carrying blood from the heart.

Surgeons at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center tried to save the life a very sick 6-month old Palestinian Arab baby with a transplant of the heart donated by an Israeli Jewish child. The baby unfortunately didn’t survive.

Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann and Technion Institutes have found that each melanoma patient has a different profile of neo-antigens (mutated peptides) on their tumors. Doctors can then extract and grow the T-cells best suited to target the neo-antigens on both primary and secondary cancers.