Dear A.,


I am writing to you with some uplifting news. As the United States and Israel confront the coronavirus pandemic, our work is helping ensure the two countries partner together to develop innovative solutions to COVID-19 and other health challenges.


Yesterday, Senators Ted Cruz and Chris Coons
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announced a bipartisan initiative to expand U.S.-Israel medical partnerships aimed at combating COVID-19. This $24 million program—split evenly between the United States and Israel—will fund joint U.S.-Israel research and development to advance the use of technology, personalized medicine and data to combat the coronavirus.


I look forward to updating you further about this legislation. You can
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click here to urge your members of Congress to expand the U.S.-Israel relationship into this critical emerging field.


Included below my signature is a memo Israeli Innovation Advances American Healthcare that we have sent to every Capitol Hill office highlighting how Israeli expertise can help advance America’s healthcare and help our country fight this pandemic.


Sincerely,


Brian Shankman

Director of Regional Affairs and Development









The events of recent weeks underscore the necessity of nations coming together to solve the world’s greatest challenges. The U.S. must partner with its closest allies, in particular those with exceptional capabilities to address shared problems. In the case of COVID-19 and its anticipated, derivative impacts, Israel is a key American partner.


This memo highlights five areas in which Israeli institutions today are addressing the COVID-19 crisis and related medical issues. These five areas—life sciences, data science, AI, medical devices, and aging—are illustrative of the arenas in which Israel is making a unique contribution. We also recommend three concrete actions that policymakers can take to enhance the U.S.-Israel relationship in order to improve the health and welfare of American citizens.


LIFE SCIENCES:
Providing medicine and breakthrough innovationFor many years, the pharmaceutical company Teva has been the crown jewel of Israel's pharmaceutical industry. It is the world’s leading developer of affordable generics, providing 10% of America’s pharmaceuticals. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the country, Teva began working closely with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. It announced in late March that within a month it would donate to American hospitals 10 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, a therapy used to treat malaria that has also shown positive results when used off-label to treat COVID-19.
Israeli company Teva announced that it would donate to American hospitals 10 million doses of hydroxychloroquine.


While the success of Israel’s innovation ecosystem is well known—Israel ranked first globally for R&D intensity in the Bloomberg 2019 Innovation Index—less appreciated is the fact that Israel has become a breakthrough center for biotech and therapeutics innovation. In 2018, Israel’s life sciences sector attracted $1.5 billion in investment. Half of civilian research at Israel’s universities and research centers is in the life sciences, and one in three Israeli scientists specializes in this area. These researchers are developing myriad responses to COVID-19:
The Israeli pharmaceutical company Kamada Ltd. is collecting blood and plasma from Israelis who have recovered from the virus, and it is using a purification process to achieve a specific concentration of antibodies for treating serious coronavirus cases, including an antibody for the most severe cases.


Migal Galilee Research Institute is reformulating a poultry coronavirus vaccine into an oral vaccine against COVID-19.


Pluristem Therapeuticsis evaluating its patented PLX cell product as a potential treatment for respiratory and inflammatory complications associated with COVID-19.


Envilex has developed a medication that could help treat catastrophic organ failure resulting from COVID-19.


DATA SUPREMACY:
Digitizing Medicine to Increase EffectivenessIn the global effort to develop vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostic capabilities, Israel’s data capabilities are both valuable and exceptional. While other developed nations have only recently come to appreciate the benefits of digitization (digitization of medical records in Germany, for example, will be not become mandatory until 2021), Israel’s four HMOs and their affiliated hospitals have used the same electronic medical records platform for over 20 years. The resultant trove of data gives Israeli institutions a unique capability to address COVID-19:
Israel's exceptional data capabilities are enabling Israeli institutions to uniquely confront COVID-19.


Israeli-American software analytics company RADlogics has developed a test that provides results within seconds, instead of hours. The test can be done quickly and noninvasively using existing CT machines, and the results can help doctors prioritize ventilator use.


Sight Diagnostics has a portable blood count and test device, which obviates the need to send results to a lab. This is ideal for use by quarantined patients.


Geneyx Genomex Ltd. developed a cloud-based genetic data bank that is used by universities and research institutes to identify genetic risk or resistance factors for various medical conditions. The company is conducting a study comparing severe and mild coronavirus cases to find out whether certain genetic mutations increase or decrease response to the virus.


ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
Deploying AI to Lead the Current Phase of Digital HealthThe strength of Israel’s software engineers, coupled with the above mentioned vast trove of data in the Israeli healthcare industry, is now yielding a unique capacity in Israel to analyze health data using advanced algorithms. Machine-learning algorithms can take historical data to project the likelihoods of medical outcomes. Today, Israeli AI companies are on the front lines of the COVID-19 fight, enabling easier detection of the virus and treatment of quarantined COVID-19 patients:
Israeli artificial intelligence companies are on the front lines of the COVID-19 fight.


Clew Medical Ltd. developed an algorithm that collects data from emergency care monitoring devices and alerts the medical team to any deterioration in a patient’s condition. As the healthcare system becomes burdened, this technology could identify a patient in danger 6-12 hours before the condition starts to worsen, enabling caregivers to prepare in advance.


EarlySense Ltd. has developed a contactless monitoring platform, which is placed under the mattress. It takes stock of a patient’s vitals around the clock, 100 times per minute.


Diagnostics.ai is working toward complete automation of PCR testing for COVID-19 using AI; if achieved, this would enable doubling the number of samples tested per day without additional staffing needs.


MEDICAL DEVICES:
At the Forefront of Medical Device InnovationIsrael, home to about 1,000 medical device companies, is second only to the U.S. in the field. Israel is first in the world in medical device patents per capita, and fourth in the absolute number of medical device patents. Because this success results largely from Israeli public-private partnerships, one can infer significant upside to Israeli-American public-private partnerships. There are numerous examples of the Israeli medical device industry addressing COVID-19:
Israel is first in the world in medical device patents per capita.


ViriMASK has developed a ventilator mask that protects the entire face from the disease; it will reportedly be ready for efficacy testing within weeks.


The IDF, in partnership with Israel’s medical device industry, is developing better protective gear for medical personnel and transforming CPAP breathing machines into ventilators.


GEROSCIENCE:
Investing in AgeDue to the aging of the global population and the particular vulnerabilities of the aged to communicable diseases such as COVID-19, there is an urgent need for greater research and development in the area of geroscience. Israel ranks third in the global longevity progressiveness index, and has invested heavily in this area. It has also sought international and bilateral cooperation, most notably through the Britain-Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership on Ageing (BIRAX Ageing), supported by the Israeli and UK governments.
Israel has invested heavily in the area of geroscience.


Policymakers should establish a U.S.-Israel cooperative R&D program in health, modeling it on the very successful U.S.-Israel BIRD programs.

An authorization for such a program already passed the House of Representatives as part of H.R. 1837 (Sec. 110(i)), led by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Joe Wilson (R-SC). Similar legislation authored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Chris Coons (D-DE) was announced in the Senate this month.

The FDA should open an office in Israel.

This will reduce the red tape and regulatory costs of bilateral cooperation, enhance regulatory cohesion, and support joint R&D. COVID-19 has exposed U.S. vulnerabilities and over-reliance on adversaries in relation to the medical supply chain, underscoring the need for greater FDA outreach to close and capable allies. Even prior to the pandemic, the U.S. House of Representatives expressed interest here through legislation requiring a report from the FDA on the possibility of opening an office in Israel as well as through a similarly supportive bipartisan letter.

Both governments should create and widely disseminate a list of relevant federal health R&D programs.

Recent stimulus legislation has provided significant new funding for these programs, most of which are open to participation by international institutions. Greater awareness about these programs and the new funding for them will facilitate greater bilateral cooperation in the near and medium terms.

















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