Ofer Shalev of Newphase
episode
Israeli Technology Founders Speak: Conversations with Successful Israeli Hitech and Biotech Entrepreneurs
25 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 14 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Israeli Technology Founders Speak, a podcast of conversations with successful Israeli high tech and biotech entrepreneurs. With your host, Avraham Hermon.
Ofer Shalev is the CEO and founder of New Phase, a med tech company that has developed a new treatment for advanced cancer patients. Their technology uses tiny particles that target and destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed, offering hope for patients when other treatments have stopped working. Avraham sat down with Ofer to discuss how their technology works. Works, how he came up with the idea, how he got funded, the challenges he's faced, tips for startup founders, and much more. This podcast is a creation of JMB Davis Ben David, an intellectual property law firm serving clients around the world. You have great innovations. We keep them safe. It's not enough to just have a great startup idea or innovation.
If you don't legally protect your innovations, products, and brand, anyone can claim them as their own. We keep your great innovation secure. Learn more by going to jmbdavis.com. That's jmb d A V I S dot com. Thank you, Over. I appreciate your invite here to your office and your labs here in Petachtikva, Israel. We're gonna talk a little bit about your company New Phase. Cancer is known to be a huge medical need and you guys deal with that. How do you address that need?
Well I would say yes, everybody agreed that cancer is a huge is a huge problem, a huge challenge. If you uh ask me about how many resources are invested in order to cure it, the answer is highly insufficient. Our approach was to develop technology, the vision, prolong the life of a cancer patient while keeping the quality of life. And based on that vision we developed our technology.
So can you tell me in general, how does the technology work and how are you curing cancer?
We learned at the beginning and we understood that the cancer have many weak points and we decided to use those weak points in order to defeat him. Now we didn't choose all the biology way of using that kind of protein and another, but we found out that a cancer cells in general are highly sensitive to temperature due to the protein that a sensor. Their membrane, this is one, and they can hold forty-one to forty-five Celsius only, while normal membrane can hold even fifty-five Celsius, and that there is a very poor blood perfusion in the cancer cell, and in translated that means that the heat dissipation of heat from the cancer cells or cancer tissue is very poor. So we decided from the beginning to use the physics of
mode of operation using hyperthermia or more accuracy the electromagnetic hyperthermia in order to destroy cancer tissue without causing any damage to the normal tissue.
I see.
What is Newphase’s breakthrough cancer‑treatment technology and how does it work?
So you're heating the cells up to a certain level that is okay for regular cells, but will kill the cancer cells specifically.
That's correct. And we found out that fifty Celsius would be the right temperature to destroy cancer cells and not causing any damage to the normal cells. We already proved it in many, many mice, many swine, and even with twenty six patient in our study until now that yes we destroy cancer tissue, but we didn't have any issue with cyclones. side effect or any serious adverse event, no with a mice, no swine and not with humans.
That sounds amazing. So can you briefly talk about how the technology works? How do you manage to selectively heat up only the cancer cells and not the healthy body cells?
This is this is the main patent of the company. The ability to control the temperature of the nanoparticle. So let's try to explain how this technology is working. We develop nanoparticles based on the iron oxide, but we encapsulate it with a material which called phase change material. That material is like a kind of a wax or a paraffin. That have the ability to absorb extra heat while reaching to the maximum temperature. In our case, it's a fifty Celsius. To the audience, look about the candle. The light of the candle might be about 400 Celsius, while the paraffin is only 70, 70 Celsius.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:21
2
What is Newphase’s breakthrough cancer‑treatment technology and how does it work?
3:21–6:40
3
How do the iron‑oxide nanoparticles selectively heat cancer cells without harming healthy tissue?
6:40–9:15
4
What inspired Ofer Shalev to create Newphase and how did the idea evolve into a company?
9:15–13:14
5
How was Newphase funded and why did Israeli VC’s show little interest?
13:14–17:03
6
What patents protect Newphase’s nanotechnology and why are they critical for the business?
17:03–21:23
7
What practical tips does Ofer give to biotech founders facing technical and regulatory hurdles?
21:23–24:20
8
What are Newphase’s next clinical milestones and plans for combining with immunotherapy?
24:20–25:29