Nine Israeli healthcare, medtech, and biotech startups have been selected for the PlayBeyondBio initiative, spearheaded by the venture capital fund JVP, British-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca, international consulting firm Accenture, Margalit Startup City, Amazon AWS, and the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

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The chosen few were revealed this week at a special event at the Margalit Startup City Center for Excellence in Jerusalem.

The selection process focused on companies that develop tools capable of predicting and pre-diagnosing illnesses. Particular focus was given to startups whose platforms focus on cancer, heart and kidney diseases, and respiratory illnesses.

As part of the six-month program, the selected startups will be put on a fast-track path centering around pilot development, validation projects, and investments from the program's partners, including a package that covers mentoring on medical, regulation and go to market models. The will also be offered business guidance and consulting sessions with experts.

"The world has changed, the world health system has changed, and today it faces new, great challenges," said founder and chairman of JVP and Margalit Startup City Erel Margalit.

"This requires significant technological developments and Israel is a major player in this great evolving story. The nine companies selected, come with technological innovations in various stages of development: some already mature and operating in global markets.  Together with our partners – Astraznica, Accenture, AWS and Shaare Zedek Medical Center, – we will help these companies move on to the next stage on the way to becoming a larger and more significant," Margalit said.

The lucky nine:

C2i Genomics: The company provides personalized technology for cancer monitoring based on standard blood tests using a method based on whole-genome sequencing (WGS), generation of personalized genomic characteristics, and artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms, enabling early detection of disease recurrence. The diagnostic service is provided to research institutes and laboratories worldwide via a cloud-based platform, providing reduction of cancer treatment costs and enabling rapid development of drugs.

Nucleai: The company has developed an AI-powered image analysis platform to unlock the power of spatial biology from pathology images. Nucleai's platform, built and trained off large-scale proprietary datasets, leverages computer vision and deep neural networks to structure and characterize tissue and cell architecture in pathology images to identify spatial characteristics that predict response to therapy and inform treatment decisions.

Itamar Medical: A medical technology company focused on the development, manufacturing and commercialization of non-invasive medical devices and solutions to aid in the diagnosis of Sleep Breathing Disorders and early detection of exacerbation in COPD patients. The FDA-cleared Loop system is a multi-vital sign wearable wristband and real time analytics, designed for remote monitoring of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), allowing the detection of early signs of exacerbation before symptoms are noticeable.

Medial Earlysign: A leader in clinical AI. The company develops and tailors algorithms using its machine learning framework.

iBex: The company focuses on AI-based cancer diagnostics in pathology, using artificial intelligence to develop clinical-grade algorithms and workflows that identify cancer as accurately as a human pathologist. The company's Galen platform is the first-ever AI-powered solution used in routine clinical practice in pathology.

Octopus.health: The company offers a personal healthcare assistant platform targeted to chronic/complex patients. Octopus.health's platform allows behavioral analysis of patients' adherence to treatment plans and uses AI and machine learning capabilities to predict patient compliance with treatment plans.

Imagene: The company provides an Al-based genomic testing solution to help cancer patients receive optimal treatment by leveraging their biopsy image for personalized therapeutics. Using proprietary deep learning algorithms, the company's solution detects the presence of cancer-specific biomarkers from the biopsy image only.

iCardio: iCardio.ai designs machine learning algorithms for everything echo, leveraging a database of over 200 million individual echo images and the iCardio.ai Platform. The company maintains a vast network of echo-technicians, echocardiographers, and cardiologists to both collect and annotate data and has developed deep learning solutions to calculate linear, area, and volumetric measurements as well as disease and abnormality detection and classification.

Cordio: Cordio Medical provides medical-grade solutions that monitor several health conditions by analyzing voice/speech samples recorded in a mobile app backed by proprietary signal speech processing algorithms, which allow near real-time monitoring and early detection of condition deterioration. Using only patient speech, sampled via mobile device, the Cordio HearO can sense fluid accumulation related to CHF and alert healthcare professionals in real-time.

President of AstraZeneca Israel Ohad Goldberg said, "AstraZeneca is proud to take part in the second cycle of the PlayBeyondBio program, alongside our partners. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for investment in digital health. Today more than ever it's clear that advances in remote monitoring, telemedicine and digital health are vital areas for the healthcare industry. AstraZeneca sees such investments in digital technologies to support diagnosis, prediction and prevention of diseases as a key part of its effort to improve healthcare delivery in Israel."

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Israel's Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer is partnering with Kaleidoscope Health Ventures to develop and execute the Chicago ARC (accelerate, redesign, and collaborate), with a vision of no less than transforming healthcare.

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The center is projected to be an anchor for the $7 billion, 100-acre Bronzeville Lakefront development on the historic site of the Michael Reese Medical Center.

The Chicago ARC aims to offer international companies a US foothold, develop health disparity solutions, incubate health innovation startups, collaborate on data science initiatives and be a gateway for global investment.

Sheba Medical Center in Israel, ranked the world's 9th leading hospital by Newsweek in 2020, has more than 70 years of clinical and research leadership. Sheba has led accelerated research and innovation on COVID-19 and other public health challenges through open collaborations with academic and government institutions, corporate partners and private and state-owned investment funds.

Kaleidoscope Health Ventures is a venture development firm that brings together world-class startups, partners, investors and talent to address socioeconomic and health issues while providing high-value services to support a new wave of life science startups and healthcare solutions.

Under the leadership of the joint venture team, the Chicago ARC seeks to foster new capabilities that grow health ventures through access to data, experienced operators, customers and capital. Focus areas include precision medicine, big data and artificial intelligence, virtual reality, telehealth and medical technologies. As one of only four US cities with three tier-one research universities, Chicago area institutions amassed over $900 million in National Institutes of Health-funded research and development funding as of 2019.

Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot said that "The Chicago ARC will enhance our incredible reserve of STEM talent, expand our next generation life sciences ecosystem and attract further capital to accelerate growth, while also serving as a transformational epicenter geared toward creating healthcare equity across our city's South Side communities."

"Our primary purpose goes beyond turning scientific discovery into financial returns; it's about turning scientific discovery into scalable innovation that drives health equity for all. The Chicago ARC redesigns the way healthcare innovation is done to achieve this commitment. It's an especially critical goal in Chicago because there's a 30-year life expectancy gap between the city's poorest and wealthiest ZIP codes," Kaleidoscope Co-founder S. Bob Chib noted.

Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at Sheba Medical Center Dr. Eyal Zimlichman said that "The ARC Innovation Center aligns with one of Israel's greatest priorities – the transformation of health care.  COVID-19 has reinforced how important it is to address and achieve health equity, making new and smarter healthcare approaches even more urgent and pressing."

Sheba Director General Professor Yitshak Kreiss added, "Transforming health requires more than a single institution or nation, which is why global collaboration is so important. Israel, and Sheba as its national medical center, started the journey long ago to disrupt health care through groundbreaking technology. The Chicago ARC Innovation Center will expand our efforts in the largest global market."

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Every year, more than 1.1 million men worldwide are diagnosed with prostate cancer. Approximately 400,000 will undergo prostate radiotherapy. However, that therapy has been limited by concerns of toxicity.

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BioProtect has developed the ProSpace balloon spacer, which helps reduction of radiation therapy risks by pushing the prostate away from adjacent organ at risk, the rectum.

The spacer remains stable during radiation therapy and is gradually absorbed after radiation therapy is completed.

The technology from BioProtect has additional applications for radiation therapy for cervical and pancreatic cancers, as well as general surgery.

Last year, a BioProtect spinout for musculoskeletal applications, Orthospace, was acquired by Stryker for a reported $220 million.

CEO Gil Rosen said that the latest financing round would allow BioProtect to complete a "pivotal study, gain FDA approval, and accelerate development of the next indication to our platform."

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"The program aims at accelerating innovative diagnostic technologies from the Israeli health tech ecosystem that address global healthcare challenges," the firms announced in a joint statement.

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The collaboration, called StarFinder Lab, will focus on "identifying and cultivating disruptive AI-driven data as well as digital healthcare solutions from the agile and highly skilled Israeli health tech ecosystem," according to the statement.

Funding, mentoring and strategic support will be provided to newly-formed or existing ventures chosen for the StarFinder Lab program. Elected entrepreneurs will have "access to global expertise from Roche and aMoon to build and tailor technologies for product-market fit."

Applications for the StarFinder Lab program will open in October 2020.

"As a world-renowned digital innovation hub, Israel has robust entrepreneurial resources that can provide solutions to major challenges faced by the healthcare industry," said Dr. Yair Schindel, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at aMoon.

CEO of Roche Israel Avi Danziger said the program "offers a unique strategic partnership model from concept to global market."

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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The pancreas – located in the abdomen – is a vital organ crucial to the digestive process and doesn't produce enough insulin in diabetic patients, causing the amount of sugars to increase in the bloodstream, leading to symptoms such as nausea and shortness of breath.

Betalin's new artificial pancreas will not only help monitor sugar levels in the body but will also detect the amount of insulin that each patient needs and release it into the patient's bloodstream.

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Betalin Therapeutics was founded in 2015 and has two famous Nobel laureates on its board, Professor Arieh Warshel and Professor Sidney Altman.

Altman relayed to Israel Hayom his own personal difficulties coping with the disease and his hope that this new device could be utilized to help patients.

"I have Type 2 diabetes and right now, I take two injections per day of insulin and this new product will eliminate that. [People] won't have to take injections anymore, and I presume that the lifetime of the product will be several months. … I won't have to take two injections a day, I'll just have an implant and that will be good for several months."

The implant will need to be replaced every several months, but so far has not been tested in humans. In mice, it has lasted 90 days.

The entire procedure of implanting the artificial pancreas takes less than an hour, with the assistance of local anesthesia. Betalin's ground-breaking bio-artificial pancreas was engineered using pig lung tissue as well as cells secreted by insulin. It can identify a patient's blood sugar level and accurately dispense the required amount of insulin. This renders all future injections, drugs or blood glucose measures obsolete and "teaches" the natural pancreas how to release insulin properly.

Dr. Avi Treves, vice president of R&D told Israel Hayom: "The technology is based on creating a micro-artificial pancreas – so instead of the damaged pancreas, we implant an artificial pancreas under the skin that [will function] just like pancreatic organs."

"The pancreas is unique in that it functions as a complete autonomous organ, not as single cells, and can therefore be located anywhere in the body. The innovative biological organ is that the pancreas attaches to a supportive tissue and can monitor blood glucose levels and secrete insulin as needed," Professor Eduardo Mitrani, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said.

Dr. Nikolai Kunicher, CEO of Betalin praised the project, saying, "There are huge advantages. … No hospitalization is needed and it can be administered under the skin, without anesthesia in outpatient clinics. We are mimicking what actually happens in the body."

The company hopes to begin clinical trials soon.

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