Israel Active

Israeli startup Healthy.io has partnered with the American National Kidney Foundation and Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System to offer its home testing kits to U.S. patients. Healthy.io transforms a regular smartphone into a device that performs lab-standard urine analysis.    BBC doesn’t mention Israel.  CNBC does!

Israel’s Teva has launched generic versions of the anti-nausea treatment ALOXI and Lialda delayed-release mesalamine.  It is good news for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and ulcerative colitis sufferers respectively.

Israeli biotech Mapi has developed a formulation of Glatiramer Acetate that Multiple Sclerosis patients only need take once a month, rather than daily. Glatiramer Acetate Depot is still in Phase 3 trials but Mapi has already sold the marketing rights to multinational giant Mylan.

Another Israeli medical “miracle”. After a motorcycle accident, doctors found that Avi Yaron had a brain tumor. They couldn’t remove all the tumor, so Avi founded Visionsense that developed an imaging device to help in similar ops. Medtronic has just bought Visionsense for $75 million.

I reported previously on Israeli startup ElastiMed and its smart socks that improve circulation to treat swelling, blood clots, chronic wounds, sports injuries etc. ElastiMed is now to receive a $1.6 million grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

Eleven medics from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center spent a week performing surgeries to fix severe spinal deformities in Ethiopia. In addition, the Israelis also provided training to medical staff at the Ayder hospital in the Northern Ethiopian city of Mekelle.

I reported previously on the predictive artificial intelligence (AI) systems of Israeli biotech Medial EarlySign. Its AI algorithms can now predict which sufferers of diabetes will develop kidney dysfunction within a one-year time-frame. Early treatment can then improve their outcome.

Scientists from Bar-Ilan University partnered with Israel’s Magen David Adom to develop “EPIMADA,” a smartphone app that issues a local proximity alert in the event of a severe allergic reaction, known as anaphylactic shock. Anyone with an EpiPen (syringe containing adrenaline) can save the victim.

Israel’s four health companies maintain databases of 5 million records that (anonymized) will benefit medical researchers in the discovery of new treatments. The Maccabi health fund is already doing this.

I wrote previously about Israeli personalized cancer biotech Ayala and its partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb. One of the results of this tie-up is AL101 - a new treatment for metastatic Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma (ACC), which could also treat triple-negative breast cancer.