Meet the Israeli Tech Companies Fighting COVID-19 Head-On

JERUSALEM, Israel – As the deadly coronavirus pandemic continues to rage on, Israeli companies are stepping up to find innovative solutions.

OurCrowd, a leading Jerusalem-based investment platform, says several of its portfolio companies are helping save lives.

One of them is Sight Diagnostics, which has deployed its safe blood testing technology to Israel’s Sheba Tel Hashomer center, the nation’s largest hospital. The technology allows doctors to safely draw and analyze the blood of coronavirus patients with a lower chance of spreading the infection.

“Typically, monitoring a patient infected with a virus like COVID-19 would involve taking a blood sample from the infected individual with a needle, labeling vials of drawn blood, sending those vials to a lab outside of the quarantine zone, and receiving the results of the test an hour or more later,” said Yossi Pollak, CEO of Sight. “OLO gives health care providers the ability to use a self-contained cartridge to collect two drops of blood, from either a venous or finger prick sample, insert the cartridge into OLO, and receive (complete blood count) results in minutes. For health facilities in countries where OLO is available for point-of-care use, that tactical advantage could make a big difference in a field setting.”

The technology has been approved for use in some labs in the United States.

“We are planning to further develop our technology to diagnose serious conditions, including complications that stem from a viral infection, that have a distinct visual signature in the blood sample,” said Yochay Eshel, VP of R&D at Sight. “We believe in the impact our technology could have on the management of infectious disease, and we are keen to do our part to help.”

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Other OurCrowd portfolio companies are also working to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of the coronavirus. These include:

SaNOtize – SaNOtizeuses nitric oxide to kill topical infections, including the coronavirus. 

“All the stores ran out of hand sanitizer so we have the gel and it’s a gel that releases nitric oxide so if you put it on your hands and I can show you. You take it like that and put it on your hands and you rub it. All the bacteria and viruses, everything on my hand, all of it is gone. That’s it,” SaNOtize CEO Dr. Gilly Regev told CBN News. 

Sweetch – Sweetch is helping medical teams remotely monitor and manage patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus and other diseases.

TytoCare – TytyCare has been deployed in coronavirus quarantine centers in Israel to empower medical teams to monitor the lungs, heart, and body temperature of COVID-19 patients with no physical contact.

MeMed – MeMed is helping improve the accuracy of blood tests by distinguishing between bacterial and viral infections by decoding the body’s immune response.  

MagniLearn – MangiLean is helping students continue to learn after schools have been shut down to stop the spread of the virus. It is an online personalized educational platform that teaches English to students using computer intelligence to craft each lesson according to the needs of each student.

Neura – Neura is a Human behavior platform that is enabling governments and health organizations to monitor and control the spread of COVID-19 by applying digitalized detection of infection chains and quarantine control to improve population adherence to government social distancing guidelines.

DreaMed Diabetes – DreaMed Diabetes is helping diabetes patients stay safe by keeping them out of hospitals and delivering optimal glycemic control in their own homes without the need for a clinic.

Kemtai – Kemtai is helping people stay in shape after gyms have closed by providing a virtual trainer that provides real-time feedback as people work out from home.

Intuition Robotics – Intuition Robotics is a digital companion that is helping the elderly and other vulnerable people avoid loneliness in isolation. The robot assists them with their daily routines and keeps them company.

Freightos.com – This company is working to keep global trade moving by creating a platform that helps importers and manufacturers remotely maintain global imports/exports despite the shifts caused by the coronavirus.

Codility – Codility is helping businesses continue operating by developing a hiring platform that allows companies to interview candidates remotely.

VocalZoom – VocalZoom has developed ‘Polaro’ laser sensor technology that enables spectral skin imaging to detect medical vital signs, enabling non-invasive, rapid screening of possible COVID-19 symptoms in hospitals for real-time detection and triage of symptomatic individuals, and at mass transit hubs including airports, train terminals.

CyberMDX - CyberMDX is helping hospitals manage and keep an inventory of critical medical devices by providing real-time data on device location and performance.

OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved applauded the long list of companies working to help the world combat COVID-19

 “We are proud of the growing cohort of OurCrowd portfolio companies who are attacking the corona crisis head on,” said Medved. “Whether they are medical companies on the front lines of COVID 19 patient care, diagnostics, and prevention or companies enabling social distancing in education and the workplace, these entrepreneurial companies are working day and night to make an important contribution to the worldwide efforts to turn the tide in this titanic struggle. This is yet again demonstrable proof of Israel’s outsize role in the world of technology and together with our mobilized worldwide network of investors, multinationals, and experts we hope to lead in pandemic defense and innovation for this outbreak and those yet to come.”