Israel Active

Israel’s Teva and Philips Healthcare selected 9 from 750 startups for their Sanara joint Israeli medical incubator.  They include MeWay (nebulizer) Myhomedoc (smartphone checkup and diagnosis), BReathme (asthma management), Purecare (gum treatment), Lensfree (lowers CT radiation), Lifegraph (migraine prevention), Lidus (blood vessel suturing) and SpirCare (lung capacity measurement).

Israel’s BiolineRx is buying UK’s Agalimmune,for $6 million. The private UK-based company has developed an innovative, anti-cancer immunotherapy platform. treatment that not only kills the tumor cells at the site of injection, but also brings about a durable, follow-on, anti-metastatic immune response.

I reported previously about Professor Yehuda Shoenfeld of Israel’s Sheba Hospital. He has now founded startup TPCera which found that parasitic Helminth worms excrete a substance that stops the immune system attacking it.  It can be used to treat auto-immune diseases.

Israeli biotech Biondvax is to receive a Government grant for 20% of the NIS 20 million required to build a Jerusalem factory for commercial scale production of its M-001 Universal Flu vaccine.  Biondvax plans to produce tens of millions of doses of M-001 annually, including for Phase 3 trials.

I reported previously on the ApoGraft fast system for collecting stem cells, developed by Israel’s Cellect. A patient dying from leukemia has just received the first transplant using these cells. Cellect (and much of the medical world) are closely monitoring results.

Thanks to Israeli health charity Ezer Mizion, an Israeli infant with immunodeficiency syndrome SCID no longer needs to live in a bacteria-free “bubble”.  A DNA match was found on Ezer Mizion’s bone marrow database and a transplant has transformed the little boy’s life.

Israel’s United Hatzalah volunteer emergency response service has a trauma and crisis response unit. The Psycho-trauma Unit’s latest recruit is a dog named Lucy. Therapy dogs have proven to be very helpful in traumatic situations, especially when dealing with children and the elderly.

Israel’s RadiAction Medical has developed an innovative shielding device to protect surgeons from radiation. Its technology will help increase in the number of image guided procedures performed annually. RadiAction has just raised $5.7 million of funding.

Every year nearly 3 million seniors suffer life-changing hip fractures from falls. Israel’s Hip-Hope is a smart waist-belt that senses an impending collision with a ground surface and deploys two large airbags instantly from each side of the belt to cushion the hips.

I reported previously that Israel’s Teva had launched a generic version of the cancer treatment Gleevec (imatinib mesylate). What I didn’t realize that Gleevec itself had Israeli origins, being based on work by Weizmann researcher Eli Canaani.  In 2003 Gleevec saved the life of Jewish hockey player and leukemia sufferer Sam Field.