Emerging Israeli cardiovascular firms demonstrate innovation.

Emerging Israeli cardiovascular firms demonstrate innovation

By JEFFREY BERG, PhD

CDU Contributing Editor

Israel has been a source of innovative medical products in a wide range of medical specialties, including many for cardiovascular applications such as stents and other implanted devices, telemetry for heart monitoring, catheter maneuvering systems, imaging technologies and vascular treatment products.

Most of the emerging companies begin within incubators formed by universities, research institutes and other government-funded organizations. Several cities in Israel are home to medical technology companies, chief among them being Yokneam and Caesarea.

There is an expanding network of venture capital firms in Israel that invest in high tech medical products and this sector is beginning to draw increased attention from the venture capital community and companies in the U.S. Peregrine Ventures (Or Yehuda, Israel) focuses on seed-stage investments and has financed three of the companies profiled below.

As the emerging companies grow, they represent acquisition candidates. Years ago, Johnson & Johnson (J&J; New Brunswick, New Jersey) acquired Biosense (Tirat HaCarmel, Israel), which has since been renamed Biosense Webster Cordis. This past year, Edwards Life Sciences (Irvine, California) acquired Percutaneous Valve Technologies (Caesarea, Israel) and Guidant (Indianapolis) acquired X Technologies (Yavne, Israel). Guidant also is an investor in several Israeli cardiovascular device companies, as noted below.

Stents, other implanted devices

B-Balloon (Ariel, Israel) is developing devices that will allow for quick and successful percutaneous interventions at ostial and coronary bifurcation lesions, two of the biggest unresolved challenges in percutaneous coronary intervention. Ostial lesion procedures account for about 5% of coronary interventions, and bifurcated lesions account for about 20% of coronary lesions.

B-Balloons devices, which also may be used in the carotid and renal arteries, employ innovative delivery systems, including novel balloon designs that enhance the accuracy of stent implantation and reduce the dependence on fluoroscopic imaging. The companys stents offer improved scaffolding of the treated area, provide support during the procedure and enable future access. Preclinical trials are under way and are showing promising results.

Neovasc Medical (Or Yehuda, Israel) has developed a minimally invasive treatment for patients with ischemic heart disease who are not candidates for …