After the “egg on face” aftermath of the media’s reporting on the LifePatch affair, you’d think the media would be a little more demure in its descriptions of paradigm-changing Israeli hi-tech and medical innovations. (I admit I was taken in by the LifePatch story too, but the company’s website is still up and nobody has been arrested or charged with any fraud crimes. So it may have been a case of premature excitement, instead of outright fraud. Time will tell).

Anyway, this past week saw the reporting of a new, major Israeli invention. According to a report on Israel Radio (Reshet Bet, the news feature station), a Rehovot company called BiondVax developed a “universal vaccine” for all forms of flu – Bird (Avian), H1N1 (swine), Hong Kong, Bolivian, and any creature, city, or country in between. You take the vaccine once, and you’re forever protected against any all flus that may strike, locally or pandemically.

The report, on Sunday morning, came after President Obama’s declaration of a state of swine flu emergency in the U.S., so it’s possible the reporter who submitted the story got a little over-excited – and that, coupled with his misunderstanding of what the vaccine actually does, led to what was clearly an overstatement (it’s nice to see, though, such a high level of Israeli pride from the likes of a Reshet Bet reporter, on a station where the reporters often try to outdo each other with their denigration of thos country).

BiondVax’s shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange jumped Sunday morning, but perhaps with memories of LifePatch still fresh in the minds of the company’s directors, a BiondVax spokesperson got on the radio to play down the story. The original report said, for example, that the BiondVax vaccine had been determined to be safe for pregnant women for swine flu inoculations (Pregnant women are more susceptible to swine flu as a group, but securing vaccines for them has been more difficult because of fears of the effects on them of MF59 Adjuvant, included in many doses. So, a vaccine that could be administered to pregnant women without MF59 Adjuvant, as the Israel Radio report said the BiondVax vaccine could, would have been big news in itself). But the BiondVax spokesperson said that the company hadn’t tested pregnant women at all, and played down the possibility that it could function as a swine flu vaccine.

But if LifePatch was guilty of overstating its innovation, it appears that BiondVax’s minimizing the report seems over-conservative, which you look at the research the company has done. It really is developing a virus super-vaccine that would be administered only once every three to five years, that would cover all the flu viruses floating around. Flu viruses, it turns out, have common characteristics called “conserved epitopes,” which can be treated using a single method (which BiondVax has discovered and patented). More tests are to be conducted over the coming year, but already the company says that its vaccine has proven safe for younger patients (18-44). Much of the testing was done in conjunction with the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, surely an institution whose research can be trusted.

While the web site does not mention swine flu (or H1N1, the new official name for the flu – and they laughed at Yaakov Litzman when he asked that the term ’swine’ not be used!), it does say that the vaccine is/will be effective against “most human influenza virus strains, as well as the Avian flu” – avian being “bird.” It further states that it can handle the “antigenic drifts and shifts” of historical stains of flu – “such as occurred in 1918, 1957, 1968, 1976, 1977 and 1997 (Spanish, Asian, Hong Kong, Swine, Russian and Avian Flu, respectively).” The verdict is still out on LifePatch (although I doubt they would be able to get a fair hearing again, after their disappointing first-round performance) – but BiondVax’s innovation looks like the real thing!

So was it a fraud – a scam – as so many now seem to believe? Was the story earlier this week about the miracle LifeKeeper patch – the patch that could predict heart attacks in advance, and give blood sugar readings without injections – cooked up for some nefarious reason?

If you haven’t been following this story, you’ve been missing some high drama. After the initial news reports on the patch developed by the SafeSky company (I have to admit, I thought from the start that it was a strange name for a medical device company!) that was now valued at over a billion dollars, after the company made a deal with MicroStar International to sell a one third interest in it for over $300 million, an avalanche of reports appeared questioning whether there really was such a deal, or if the patch even existed. The patch has never been seen by an independent third party, apparently; MSI denied that there was any deal with SafeSky, and has even threatened to sue for defamation if their name was not kept out of the story.

CEO Gabi Picker quit, saying that he, too, had never seen the device, or any of the paperwork revolving around it (like FDA certification). One of the principals of the company, Arik Klein, served time for crimes some years ago after he was convicted of fraud. The deal was mostly worked out by fax and e-mail (some reports said), with the e-mail address not really that of MSI, but of an e-mail address that looked legitimate but was really owned by Klein himself. Etc. etc. etc.

So how could so many intelligent people (I’d include myself in that number, but I’m not that intelligent!) fall for this alleged scam (we’ll get back to that word “alleged” in a minute). Only because so many other medical and tech miracles have come out of Israel in recent years.

I spoke with my buddy Jameel at length about this story – he didn’t believe a word of this from the beginning. He is also a certified EMT who has had (unfortunately) much experience with heart attacks and the like, and according to him, the signs of an imminent heart attack (high blood pressure, an adrenaline rush) could be attributed to many factors other than heart problems, such as exercise (but for people with weak hearts, wouldn’t those signs indicate increased danger anyway?). Plus, he says, the idea of a non-invasive method for checking blood sugar doesn’t exist either.

Well, I’m not a doctor (I don’t even play one on TV!), so I can’t comment on the medical aspect of what Jameel says. But I do know something about medical devices and software technology – and the idea of using sensors to determine a threshold (such as heart rate) that sets off an alarm is nothing new. The patch is supposed to relay the information it collects by bluetooth (certainly not unfeasible). Similar technology – sensors, alarms, communication – can be found in any number of products. The issues being disputed are getting the data (using sensors in a patch) and communicating it (the patch is thought to be too small to hold a communications chip).

But I still say that the scam is “alleged” – meaning that there really could be a LifeKeeper patch.  According to this story, the folks behind the patch are to appear on Israel Channel Two Friday night in an exclusive interview, and will continue to claim that the patch exists, and that it will be sold. Dr. Amos Bouchnik, a respected businessman who is half owner of the company, says that there will be a big deal for this patch, which does exist. “I believe that there will be many deals. The company called SafeSky will be worth $20 or $30 billion in the future.”

Is he crazy? If you believe the whole thing is a scam, and considering the week Bouchnik had, you would have to think so. And yet the man is a millionaire several times over. You would think that he would drop the pretense at this point. Any value that could have been attributed to this scam has now been compromised. Some said it was designed to pull in investment money, others said it was a money laundering scam (lots of money going into the SkySafe account that could be sourced as part of the deal by tax authorities). But the story has been reported around the world by now; who would sink their money into this?

In other words, what does Bouchnik get out of going on TV and continuing to make claims?

Until I get a satisfactory answer, I’m sticking with “alleged” scam – and hoping that this is the real thing!

At first it sounded like another dream deal: An Israeli company sold a one third interest in a medical device it developed to a British-Taiwanese company for $370 million – making the total value of SafeSky’s LifeKeeper Patch over $1 billion. The deal, between SafeSky and Micro-Star International (MSI), is one of the biggest ever in relative terms for an Israeli hi-tech industry.

According to the company, the LifeKeeper patch can read information about the wearer’s medical state – recording data such as body temperature, heart rate and rhythms, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. When you wear the patch, the information is transmitted via Bluetooth to a cell phone, where an application records the information. The phone program evaluates the data, and if the information being recorded indicates that that wearer is in danger of a heart attack or stroke, it can send an emergency message out to doctors or emergency services, who can then locate the wearer using the phone’s GPS capabilities. (I’m proud to say I had the first full English-language report on this, which you can read here)

Sounds like a medical miracle! And the fact that a company was willing to stake so much money for just a partial ownership seems like a miracle, too – in fact, it’s pretty miraculous that any company would have that kind of money around today!

Maybe it’s jealousy or politics (one of the co-inventors of the patch is said to be a good friend of Prime Minister Netanyahu), but a smattering of reports have appeared in the Israeli press over the past day or so questioning whether there was a deal, or whether the patch even exists! This, despite assurances by the owners that the deal was done and the check from MSI is already in the hands of SafeSky’s Tel Aviv lawyers. In an interview for a print publication (whose name I am not authorized to reveal online!) the interviewer asked co-inventor Amos Bouchnik about the reports, and he dismissed them:

“We’re not paying attention to them at all. We’ve kept the device under wraps at the request of the purchaser in order to ensure maximum industrial security. MSI will conduct a presentation in Tel Aviv in the near future and demonstrate it to doctors. The company has been examining this device for the past 18 months and it is indeed a device that will change the face of medicine.”

SafeSky is a private company, it made a deal for a product it owns, and it doesn’t have to reveal any details of its work – including to the media. But apparently the media doesn’t agree. Channel One ran a rather snide report questioning whether the device even exists! As if Bouchnik and his partner Arik Klein (Netanyahu’s friend) made the whole thing up! Note that both are very successful dentists, of all things – entrepreneurial dentists, who own chains of dental clinics and are involved in several other businesses. SafeSky, which they wholly own, has other products as well, such as “a better solar panel,” which can collect 100 times more energy than panels currently in use.

Not only do the two own the exclusive patents to the patch: They have never taken VC or other investment money, meaning they don’t owe anybody anything.

And therein probably lies the root of their spate of bad press, if I know my Israeli reporters. Probably some goon demanded to see the patch in action, and Bouchnik and Klein told them no way – to which the reporter got very offended and threatened to do a hatchet job on them. Unimpressed, the two sent the reporter his or her way, and s/he made good on the threat by running a nasty story questioning not only their ethics and reliability, but their sanity (as if they made the whole thing up!)

And if you think I’m being too hard on the reporter, I invite you to listen to the news magazines on Israel’s second radio channel (Reshet Bet), at 9 AM, 10 AM, Noon, and 5 PM. In the many live interviews with newsmakers they conduct, the speakers – ranging from politicians to plain old Joes – have to contend with constant interruptions, innuendo, and overall nastiness and rudeness. I mean it; speakers get interrupted by the hosts at nearly every sentence. It’s as if the hosts have to hear themselves speak every few seconds, in order to make sure everyone knows they’re in charge! That’s the caliber of reporter in Israel’s media – and making up a story just to get back at a company that doesn’t want to play ball with them is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. (Note: Picture is NOT of the LifeKeeper Patch, but for illustrative purposes only!)

While everyone (here, at least) is talking about how Barack Obama “stuck it” to Israel, there were a few lines in his speech that must have unnerved the Islamic radicals. Like the man said – he plans to tell the truth to everyone who needs to hear it, and that includes things like rights for women in the Muslim world, fighting terrorism, and demanding an end to anti-Semitism, especially Holocaust denial. All three of these phenomena are (pardon the term) “sacred cows” for many Muslims (Holocaust denial goes far beyond Iran), and we should expect Obama to lean on Islamic countries and leaders for change in these areas, as much as he appears ready to lean on Israel to make a deal with Mahmoud Abbas and company.

So just how will this “leaning” take place? What could Obama do to convince anti-Israel and anti-Semitic states to change their ways, which have been set in centuries of tradition (long before there was a State of Israel)? He could start with the health situation in the Muslim world, and just how far behind Israel even the more advanced Muslim states, like Iran, really are. For example, Iranians are among the world’s biggest sufferers of diabetes – about one-third of adults in Tehran have disturbed glucose tolerance or diabetes, according to a 9500-person study last year, and the problem is prevalent throughout the country. Many Tehran residents are obese, and there is a history of both Type I (Juvenile) and Type II diabetes in many families.

Israel, on the other hand, is one of the world leaders in diabetes research, and Israeli research has contributed to a number of treatments used to combat diabetes in Iran. For example, Israel’s D-Cure program has been operating for several years, coordinating research efforts at Israel’s top institutions. “In many fields in diabetes research, Israel is leading the world – in looking for islet cells, and alternatives to beta cells,” said D-Cure president Prof. Itamar Raz, who is also president of the Israel Diabetes Association and head of the Diabetes Center at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. Among the topics researched by D-Cure are cures and treatments related to both Type 1 and II diabetes. An Israeli innovation – the Oramed Insulin Capsule is an orally ingestible soft gel insulin capsule that the company believes will help Type II diabetics reduce the dependency on insulin shots and even prevent them from needing them at a later stage of the disease – is being tested now and will revolutionize treatment for Type II sufferers when approved.

And Israel’s Andromeda Biotech is about to embark on a phase III clinical trial of one of the most promising potential cures for Type I diabetes in the world, DiaPep 277, a synthetic peptide of 24 amino acids derived from the sequence of the human heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60). Heat shock protein therapies are considered among the best possibilities for a diabetes cure, and Iran has conducted its own research in these areas – often treading the ground broken by Israeli scientists! Interestingly, a link describing such research at an Iranian university has been taken down – fortunately, it’s available as  Google archive. Was it taken down because the Hsp60 research is so clearly connected to Israel?

Before anyone gets too panicky about swine flu, make sure you check with the experts. Not the CDC or your doctor; as everyone knows, Google is the real expert on everything, including flu. And according to the Google Flu Trends site, the risk of flu is low – nearly minimal. “Current estimates of flu activity are still generally low across the United States, as is expected given the confirmed swine flu case count,” say Google.

And how did Google get to be such an expert on flu – and other – trends? By working with great developers right here in Israel! Google has two development centers in Israel – in Tel Aviv and Haifa – which shows how much Google values Israeli development (there are only a couple of countries around the world – MUCH bigger than Israel! – that have more than one development center).

Flu Trends is a demonstration of the overall Google Trends technology. According to the Trends blog,

Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there’s a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day’s flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness.

But it turns out that Google has been not only using made in Israel tech – its whole identity could be considered to have been created here, according to this article in Haaretz. Artist Ruth Kedar designed the famous Google logo ten years ago while she was at Stanford in California. According to Kedar, the logo’s simple look is deceptive, hiding its complex layers. Quoting her, the article says:

Someone who sees the logo for the first time doesn’t necessarily need to absorb all the layers and considerations behind every decision – it’s better for him to discover something new every time. It somewhat amuses me to turn on the computer and look at the logo I designed. But it also fills me with pride. When you say Google to people today, they immediately see the colorful logo.”