OncoHost, an Israeli startup working toward improved personalized cancer immunotherapy, is one of nine Israeli companies that received a total of $8 million in grants for joint projects from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation.
Binyamina-based OncoHost’s partner is RayBiotech, a life-sciences company in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. Their $1 million BIRD grant will help them develop and clinically validate a host response test for the early prediction of immunotherapy treatment responsiveness in non-small cell lung cancer patients.
The money also will be used to further develop and implement an automated platform to help pharmaceutical companies speed up large-scale protein processing for personalized cancer therapy.
The nine projects approved in this round are in addition to the 992 projects approved for BIRD Foundation funding during its 42-year history.
The total investment in joint projects is over $350 million, helping to generate direct and indirect sales of more than $10 billion.
The other projects getting grants for product development in this round are:
• Advanced MemTech (Ness Ziona, Israel) and Agar Corporation (Houston, TX): oil-water separation membrane technology for the oil & gas industries.
• AgroScout (Misgav, Israel) and Birdstop (San Francisco, CA): a digital agronomy system for automated early detection of crop diseases and pests using a drone-in-a-box platform.
• DosentRx (Afula, Israel) and Contents Trader (Houston, TX): novel technology for homecare medication tracking and management and integration into the U.S. specialty pharmacy ecosystem.
• Fluence Water Products and Innovation (Caesarea, Israel) and Energy Systems Group, LLC (Newburgh, IN): a new energy-efficient process for nitrogen removal in water resource recovery facilities that use anaerobic digesters for sludge treatment.
• GaitBetter (Haifa, Israel) and Spaulding Rehabilitation Network (Charlestown, MA): a motor-cognitive intervention to improve gait and mobility in stoke survivors by adding a virtual reality (VR) experience to treadmill training.
• MDI Health Technologies (Herzliya, Israel) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, MA): a system for providing personalized and precise medication treatments.
• Nanolock Security (Nitzanei-Oz, Israel) and Micron Technology (Boise, ID): a cybersecurity solution to prevent and monitor persistent attacks on connected media devices.
• Raicol Crystals (Rosh Ha’ayin, Israel) and Qubitekk, Inc. (Bakersfield, CA): an efficient miniaturized entangled photon source for quantum computing.
Each project also will access private-sector funding, boosting the total value of the nine projects to approximately $18 million.
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