Summer high-tech scandal keeps Israel amused

July 9, 2009 - 1:31 PM by Nicky · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, Crime, General, Life, Technology

Israel is agog. This week we’ve watched the best high-tech scandal to unfold since Kobi Alexander ran off to Namibia.

It all began at the start of the week when an Israeli newspaper broke a story about Bnei Brak company, Life Keeper, which has developed a heart monitor patch, selling a 37 percent stake in the company to a Taiwanese computer hardware manufacturer for $370 million, at a company value of $1 billion.

Someone's not telling the truth.

In these recessionary days, journalists across the country leapt on the story. Israeli company makes good – we just love that kind of story here. There were a few puzzling things, however. Number one of which was why no one had actually heard of this company before, especially given that it was developing such cool technology – the patch apparently could forecast when you were going to have a heart attack and send your location to a doctor.

The next day the doubts began. Israel’s financial daily, Globes carried out a bit of uncharacteristic investigative reporting into the sale and discovered that the Taiwanese company, Micro-Star International (MSI), hadn’t actually reported the deal, while its London office claimed it didn’t know a thing about it.

Not so, said SafeSky CEO, Dr. Gabi Picker. “The deal is valid and alive,” he told Globes. “We hold an MOU signed by a notary by both sides from Seligman & Co. law firm that accompanied the negotiations. They have a copy of the document.”

Globes also pointed out that none of Israel’s VC funds had heard of SafeSky – the company’s parent company, and nor had any of Israel’s leading doctors.

The next day Ha’aretz waded in, pointing out that the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem – supposedly conducting clinical trials for the device – had no connection to the company or the patch.

Picker, who joined SafeSky just a few weeks ago, also seemed to be getting cold feet, hinting that company director Hagai Hadas – a former Mossad man who had encouraged him to join the firm – for the mess. Ha’aretz said Picker told confidantes that he wasn’t entirely sure that either the product or the deal were real.

Doubts also surfaced about Aharon (Arik) Klein, supposedly the inventor of the patch technology. Turns out he’s serial con man who has numerous debts and various prison sentences for fraud. Even the police in Cyprus are hunting for him.

Now the latest news in the saga is that Picker has resigned. His resignation comes after a lawyer at Seligman & Co. refused to give Picker’s attorney a copy of the document about the transaction.

So what comes next? We’ll just have to wait and see. Ah. There’s nothing like a good scandal to keep you going through the slow, scorching days of summer. Far better than stories about aliens and crop circles.

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Tags: Aharon Klein, Dr. Gabi Picker, Globes, Haaretz, Hadassah, heart monitor patch, Kobi Alexander, Life Keeper, Micro-Star International, SafeSky, scandal, Seligman & Co., Taiwan

Israel going to pot

March 22, 2009 - 10:08 AM by David · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Medical Breakthroughs, Technology

pot1 Forget California – did you know that Israel has one of the most progressive medical marijuana programs around?

Run out of an office in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam, the Health Ministry’s program provides legally grown pot to hundreds of Israelis with medical conditions that have been proven to be helped by the active ingredient in cannabis – THC.

The categories include patients with malignant tumors who are in one of two stages – either during chemo to ease nausea and promote appetite, or those with a final stage tumor, terminal patients who have a prognosis for living for another six months; HIV patients, who attend one of the country’s eight HIV centers in the country; chronic pain patients who are being treated at pain clinics or by a known pain physician; patients with Crohn’s Disease or ulcerative colitis, who are being treated by gastroenterologists; and MS patients specifically for the spasticity symptoms upon recommendation from an MS center or a neurological specialist.

In addition patients with post stress trauma disorder are being tested with the drug on an experimental basis – these include many former IDF soldiers experiencing PSTD following their participation in battle.

Dr. Yehuda Baruch is the guy who makes the decisions which patients are accepted to the program, which receives over 60 applicants each month. The licenses need to be renewed at various intervals ranging from monthly to annually depending on the condition. According to Baruch, once a patient receives approval, he’s given the option to either grow the plants himself or be supplied free of charge by one of the minstry’s five authorized pot growers.

In addition to the medical marijuana program, Israel can boast one of the world’s superstars in cannabis research – 78-year-old Professor Raphael Mechoulam. In 1964, Mechoulam was the first researcher in world to isolate THC, and in 1993, he headed an Israeli-Scottish team that succeeded in identifying, isolating and synthesizing a previously unknown substance in the brain that functions much as THC itself. The researchers named it anandamide, from the Sanskrit word ananda, meaning inner joy.

Today, in his lab at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, Mechoulam and his team synthesize the THC from a steady supply of cannabis supplied by the Israel Police, and create a liquid form that’s given to cancer patients undergoing painful marrow transplants.

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Tags: bat yam, Hadassah, Health Ministry, medical marijuana, Raphael Mechoulam, Yehuda Baruch

Nostalgia Sunday – Mommy’s trip to Sinai

November 9, 2008 - 10:23 PM by Rachel Neiman · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday

I have no idea what my mother did when she went to the Sinai in the summer of 1968. I mean, I know why she went — she was Shulamith, singer of international folksongs with a large following of Hadassah ladies in the greater Boston area. Check out this photo (and the hats).

Shulamith at Hadassah

And I know that while were visiting Israel that summer, she flew down to Sinai to entertain the IDF troops. Look, here’s a photo of the airstrip:

Shula in Sinai 1968 - airstrip

And I know she sang for these fellows, because she told me so.

Shula in Sinai 1968 - group

But I have no idea if this is where she stayed. I figure it must be. This is the problem with being a kid. Grown-ups don’t tell you everything.

Shula in Sinai 1968 - accommodations

My mother came back from the Sinai bearing a very large pink conch shell and a square box encrusted entirely with shells – even the feet were shells!. We girls treasured those items for years — my little sister still has the big shell — but the box, like most fabulous tschotchkes, is long gone with no photographic record of its existence. Only the memory remains.