“The experience of visiting the gynecologist has not changed in 50 years,” says Ran Poliakine, the founder of Powermat Technologies. In recent years, Poliakine has been investing in a series of startups including Illumigyn, which is developing a new device to improve the testing for cervical cancer. He said, “The examination today is based too much on the subjectivity of the doctor; our product, the first endoscope for the cervix, will change the field and allow for a test which will have similar results even when conducted by two different doctors.”
Illumigyn is one of more than ten ventures founded on Poliakine’s campus in Neve Ilan - west of Jerusalem. The startups include one designing a diagnostic system using threads woven into hospital beds and another working to make laptop keyboards history.
The company is led by CEO Ariel Katz, formerly COO of Powermat and VP at Comverse; like many if the executives in Poliakine’s startups, he has been at his side for many years. “The big medical devices companies are doing everything they can to improve our health, but there have been no advances in gynecology,” says Katz, “And it means the results of the existing screening tests for cervical cancer are no more accurate than a monkey picking stocks.”
The tests for cervical cancer today are undertaken gradually. In the first stage, doctors perform a pap test. If the results of the sample are abnormal, the doctor can peer into the vagina using a specialized microscope called a colposcope; if there is still any suspicion of cancer, they can even conduct a biopsy.
Neither the pap test nor the biopsy is considered accurate enough.
“Below the surface”
“Cervical cancer is completely preventable if identified in time,” says Katz, “But each year dozens of thousands of cases are missed in the US alone. These women may not survive the cancer or their fertility may be irreversibly harmed. We are talking about the second most-common cancer in women.”
In the east, these screening tests are far less prevalent, making this cancer much more common and hundreds of thousands of women lose their lives their each year.
The idea behind Illumigyn is a product of technology. Industrial ventures use infrared and ultraviolet cameras to look for defects inside materials and not only on the surface. The company wandered why this technique wasn’t used to identify defects below the surface like cancer. The company says the infrared sensors look below the surface while the ultraviolet light highlights cancerous cells differently than healthy ones.
While using the Illumigyn device, the doctor can see on his screen an image composed of the visible light and other frequencies and even save an image for future comparison. “This way, if a woman wants a second opinion from a different specialist, she doesn’t have to be tested again, she only needs to show him the picture,” says Poliakine.
These type of cameras are so abundant in the industrial sector that they have become extremely affordable, allowing Illumigyn to sell its Gynescope for a price not much higher than the speculum used to expand the cervix for a biopsy.
In the initial stage, the company will market its product for more accurate identification of the appropriate site for biopsy; later, it will likely compete in the colposcope field. In the future, it may even compete with the other screening tests.
Katz says, “We are entering the market on the back of insurance payments for the speculum used for an ordinary gynecological exam, but our speculum also has an advanced camera.”
The product is currently in the soft launch phase; it is expected to be approved and available within two years. Along the way the company will seek a significant investment and a strategic partner to help with distribution. The company has received investment of $5 million from Poliakine, Katz, and a group of private investors involved in many of the former’s firms.
Poliakine: Today we are focusing on cervical cancer because it is a clear application of the product, but it can also be used to examine sexual assault and inflammation among other applications in gynecology.”
Are there any women in the company?
“I am personally very in touch with my feminine side,” says Poliakine jokingly. “Dr. Risa Kagan from Berkeley is a member of our scientific advisory committee.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 9, 2016
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