Israeli companies present breakthrough medical technologies - IMPROVATE Life-Saving Technologies Conference: Cell therapies, bio-engineering, big-data analytics creating future of medicine

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TEL AVIV, Israel, July 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading health professionals from Israel and around the world, government officials and top Israeli med-tech companies discussed the exciting future of medicine in diverse fields such as bioengineering and cell therapy, remote medicine, the use of artificial intelligence and big data, and more, at the IMPROVATE Life-Saving Technologies conference.

Watch the conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVXG6xOEUcY

Among the speakers at the conference were Israel's Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, Orit Farkash Hacohen; Dr. Andrei Baciu, Secretary of State within the Romanian Ministry of Health; and Rosen Plevneliev, former president of Bulgaria. Leading health experts included Prof. Roni Gamzu, Director of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center; Prof. Ze'ev Rotstein, Director of Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem; Nikolay Hadjidontchev, General Manager of Teva Pharmaceuticals, Bulgaria;  Dr. Galia Barkai,  Director of Sheba Beyond, Sheba Medical Center's  Virtual Hospital; Dr. Cristina Berteanu, Director of the Neolife Medical Center,  Bucharest, Romania; Milena Stoycheva, a Bulgarian Entrepreneur and Educator;  Dr. Yossi Bahagon, a Serial Med-tech Entrepreneur and VC; Bareket Knafo, Head of Israel's Economic and Trade Mission to Romania and Ukraine; and Dr. Laurentia Nicoletta  Gales, Associate Professor of Oncology at Bucharest's "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Companies represented at the conference: MDA, IAI Elta Systems, G-medical, Telesofia, Patho-Logica, Innocan Pharma, BioLight Life Sciences , Imedis, Sivan, Rithem Life Sciences, Kadimastem, Pulsenmore, Vayyar, Healables, Precise-Bio, Enlivex Therapeutics, and Hospikol.

Prof. Ze'ev Rotstein, Director of Hadassah Medical Center, addressed the conference on how better data creates better care.

"We are on the verge of being able to constantly monitor patients 24 hours a day - in modern countries - and using AI to interpret this data, and this is exactly the difference between life and death," Rotstein said. "Big data is enormously important. Big data is not only the clinical data of the patients, but we are deepening our understanding of all the genomics. We know how to perform full gene diagnostics, we know how to perform next generation sequencing of the data, we can collect data on risk groups, and we can provide better or earlier diagnostics to prevent disease or at least detect disease early on in order to be able to treat it." 

Prof. Ronni Gamzu, currently the director of the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv and a former director general of Israel's Ministry of Health said that the future of medicine lies in a convergence of all scientific disciplines.

"Biology, mathematics, physics - they are all connected. The future is convergence," said Gamzu. "We cannot go ahead with silos and silos. We have great minds, we have a great culture of hi-tech and start-up companies, great minds that are reinventing everything - not only medicine, but technology and the internet. All of that can be and should be converged in a way that we reinvent the way that we understand things, confront challenges and progress with therapies. This is what medicine is going to look like in the future. Not only classic medicine, but a convergence of all sciences to rebuild the future."

Israel's Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Orit Farkash Hacohen said that Israel's advanced health data records had given it a huge advantage in the coronavirus vaccination roll-out and looking to the future the fact that Israel has the world's second-largest database of health records was a huge asset for the health, technology and academic communities. 

"We need to continue to exploit our data and combine it with genetic data and so on, and connect the data with the academic and scientific communities so that they can access it," Farkash Hacohen said. "At the same time, we also need to create a regulatory framework that will on the one hand provide access to the technological and academic communities to these health records and on the other hand will safeguard the privacy of each citizen that is part of this database." 

Dr. Andrei Baciu, Secretary of State within the Romanian Ministry of Health described the Israeli healthcare sector as one of the leading in the world in terms of digitalization, and said there were strong opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, especially between Israel's healthcare sector and Romania's IT sector where he said a "powerful marriage" could be created.

"We have to identify common goals and start building bridges for our patients at a regional and global level," Baciu said. "At the end of the day, any and every breakthrough in digital healthcare is going to help the patient community worldwide. It is important to find common projects with very specific goals and from that point on it is only a matter of time to get competitive results at a global level."

Former Bulgarian President and IMPROVATE advisory board member Rosen Plevneliev said the European market holds huge opportunities for Israeli companies.

"The European Union has amazing potential because of the sheer size of its market, and the opportunity to really transform technology standards for 27 countries with over 500 million people living with the same regulations and standards."

IMPROVATE co-founder and CEO Ronit Hasin Hochman said: "The conference showed how Israel is at the forefront of medical technology and is able to improve lives around the world, something that is very much in line with IMPROVATE's mission."

Precise Bio is leading a revolution in the field of bio-convergence and tissue engineering. Precise Bio's unique 3d printing technology together with cell biology, biomaterials and a comprehensive multi-disciplinary approach enable bringing 4D biofabriacted tissues to the clinic.

Enlivex Therapeutics is a clinical stage macrophage reprogramming immunotherapy company developing Allocetra, a universal, off-the-shelf cell therapy designed to reprogram macrophages for the treatment of life-threatening diseases such as solid cancers, sepsis, COVID-19 and many others.

Kadimastem is a leading cell therapy company developing a treatment for ALS and a cure for diabetes. 

Patho-Logica is a service company that supports projects in the early stages of development of laboratory animal experiments.

SIVAN is a leader in the e-health industry, and developed MOOVCARE – a medical application that detects relapses and complications in the follow-up process of lung cancer patients. It was the first digital therapy that was proven to improve life expectancy and to be reimbursed in France.

Hospikol focuses on improving communication in hospitals between the patient and the care team, while allowing management to analyse and improve efficiency and patient satisfaction.

Rithem Life Sciences is a technology company that is set to address needs in resuscitative medicine by creating a defibrillator that is small enough to fit in a kitchen drawer, and removes he cost factor from preventing ownership.

Innocan Pharma is a pharmaceutical company, developing several patent-pending Cannabinoids Delivery Systems to enhance the potency and efficacy of CBD as a therapeutic device.

IMedis has developed Duali-Q, a revolutionary medical innovation that promotes early detection of cancer and other life-threatening diseases using AI technology.

BioLight Life Sciences is a TASE-listed company investing in the best Israeli innovation in ophthalmology.

SOURCE IMPROVATE