Health security

US government to stock Israeli bio-tech cure for lethal radiation in 2017

An Israely biotech company has developed an anti-radiation therapy that the US government will likely begin stocking next year, and which is able to cure nearly all patients exposed to nonconventional radiological incidents such as “dirty” bombs, or attacks on nuclear power plants.

Pluristem Theraputecs, based in Haifa, has developed a placenta- based cell therapy, which involves injecting patients who have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.

Clinical trials have so far yielded a near 100 percent recovery rate for animals exposed to radiation, Yaky Yanay, president and chief operating officer of Pluristem, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Last week, the US’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the US National Institutes of Health, initiated studies of large animals to evaluate dosing. The trials are part of the US’s Department of Homeland Security program to protect people in cases of catastrophes involving radiation.