Racheli Ofir of Betalin Therapeutics
episode
Israeli Technology Founders Speak: Conversations with Successful Israeli Hitech and Biotech Entrepreneurs
18 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 15 days ago
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What problem does Betalin Therapeutics aim to solve for diabetes patients?
This is Israeli Technology Founders Speak, a podcast of conversations with successful Israeli high tech and biotech entrepreneurs. With your host, Avraham Hermon.
Racheli Ophir is the CEO and CTO of Betelin Therapeutics, an Israeli company developing a biological micro pancreas that could one day offer a one time cure for insulin dependent diabetes, replacing the missing pancreatic function with living cells that sense glucose and respond in real time. Avraham sat down with a To discuss how the technology works, what their animal trials showed, why IP is critical, the challenges of funding a biotech startup in wartime Israel, her advice 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 innovations secure. Learn more by going to jmbdavis.com. That's jmbdavis.com
I'm here with Rachelio Fir, CEO and CTO of Betalin Therapeutics. First let's start with what problem Betalin solves.
So Betalin is aiming to solve the problem of diabetes, which is a huge problem, especially insulin-dependent uh diabetes that are over five or even six hundred million people suffering from diabetes in the world, and a large part of them are insulin dependent. And right now they are dependent on the combination of devices, a device that measures glucose levels in the blood of the patients, and then another device that corrects the glucose levels by injecting insulin. They're really sophisticated. Devices, but still, it's a huge burden on the quality of life of these patients. They need to monitor their glucose every few hours before doing sports, after doing sports, before eating, after eating, etc.
And usually they don't reach full normal glycemic values. And therefore we want to solve the problem from the core, which is the lack of a functional pancreas. And this is by injecting or transplanting actually a functional micropuncreas and this is the technology that we're developing. We're building a biological pancreas. It's not like some people call a closed system devices, they call them artificial pancreas, but we're talking about an actual biological pancreas, which is composed of biological tissue with insulin secreting cells embedded in it. And together it's a whole fully functional organ that can be transplanted into the diabetic patients.
How does the biological micro‑pancreas sense glucose and release insulin faster than devices?
It can sense the glucose levels in the blood of the patients and provide the right response, the right level of insulin that is needed at that particular moment. The response is by far faster than the response of a device which takes a few seconds, if not minutes, and takes a time. When we're talking about a biological tissue, everything happens within microseconds, so the no times of imbalance in the blood glucose levels.
Okay. So the times in the blood glucose levels are small, is what you're saying?
Yeah, because it it's a biological uh the time of sensing and responding is by far faster when we're talking about a biological tissue if you compare it to a device.
This sounds almost like science fiction. How did this idea come into being?
So the idea originated from the Hebrew University and the idea was that cells need their microenvironment. The cells in the body they're not just floating around, they're embedded into tissue. The tissue is not just a physical anchor for the cells, but it also the way that signals pass between the cells and the tissue, and the cells need to interact with each other and with the tissue. So the initial idea came from the Hebrew University, from Professor Eduardo Mitterani. And it was taken by Bethelin. and developed much further into where it is today to use real biological tissue and in our case we're using portsine lungs as the source of the tissue that we're using to implant the pancreatic cells on them.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What problem does Betalin Therapeutics aim to solve for diabetes patients?
0:00–3:24
2
How does the biological micro‑pancreas sense glucose and release insulin faster than devices?
3:24–6:26
3
Why did Betalin choose porcine lung tissue as the scaffold for pancreatic cells?
6:26–9:49
4
What did the pre‑clinical mouse studies reveal about insulin secretion and vascularisation?
9:49–13:35
5
How critical is intellectual property protection for Betalin’s investors and partners?
13:35–15:43
6
What challenges does a biotech startup face raising funds in wartime Israel?
15:43–17:37
7
What advice does Racheli Ofir give to founders just starting their biotech venture?
17:37–18:39
8
What are Betalin’s milestones and goals for the next 1‑5 years?
18:39–18:43