Posted on 03/12/2021 1:57:08 PM PST by nickcarraway
Belkin Laser’s Eagle device delivers healing laser beams quickly and without touching the patient; any ophthalmologist can use it.
One hundred and forty million people suffer from glaucoma, a degenerative eye disease that can lead to blindness. It is most prevalent among people aged 60 and up.
Glaucoma is generally preventable, either by eye drops or laser surgery. Patients have poor compliance with drops, and laser surgery is cumbersome, uncomfortable and usually performed only by a specialist.
Israeli startup Belkin Laser has developed an alternative laser treatment that is fast, guided by sophisticated image-processing software, and can be offered by any of the 200,000 general ophthalmologists worldwide – and ultimately by non-physician optometrists.
Given that just 11 percent of ophthalmologists specialize in glaucoma, expanding who can offer treatment represents a game-changer.
Glaucoma is a progressive degeneration of the optic nerve, mostly associated with increased intraocular pressure (IOP) inside the eye. IOP increases due to problems with the drainage of the aqueous humor, the fluid that fills the space between the cornea and the vitreous and delivers nutrients to the transparent parts of the eye.
The eyes are constantly producing a small amount of new aqueous humor; it must then drain out via the trabecular meshwork (TM) – a spongy tissue located around the colored part of the eye. If the TM is clogged up or on a too-narrow angle, IOP increases and glaucoma can develop.
An approved form of laser eye surgery known as SLT (selective laser trabeculoplasty) involves contact with the eye for about 10 minutes. The doctor places a large lens against the eye and rotates it to fire 100 separate laser beams manually.
“It’s not very pleasant to have a rotating lens on your eye,” Daria Lemann-Blumenthal, Belkin Laser’s CEO, tells ISRAEL21c.
Belkin Laser CEO Daria Lemann-Blumenthal. Photo courtesy of Belkin Laser Only 25% of non-specialist eye doctors in the US offer the SLT procedure. “A device where anyone can use it will help ophthalmologists manage their flow of patients,” Lemann-Blumenthal says. “And because of Covid-19, there is a backlog of patients.”
Belkin Laser’s approach to the glaucoma laser procedure is automatic, without contact, by transmitting the laser beam to the TM through the sclera – the white part of the eye. The 100-plus laser beams can be delivered almost simultaneously in seconds.
The Belkin Laser Eagle system’s advanced image-processing algorithms determine precisely where to aim the laser beams even if the target isn’t directly visible. A proprietary eye tracker allows for easy automation of the treatment, called DSLT – direct selective laser trabeculoplasty.
Named for its inventor
Belkin Laser is named after its founder, Prof. Michael Belkin, an ophthalmologist and serial entrepreneur who initially approached the Rad BioMed accelerator with his idea.
Belkin was behind another glaucoma company, Optonol, which he sold to Alcon in 2009 for $200 million. Belkin serves as medical director in his new company.
CEO Lemann-Blumenthal’s late father, ophthalmologist Prof. Michael Blumenthal, was Belkin’s mentor for many years.
Her grandparents were also ophthalmologists, so it’s no surprise that Lemann-Blumenthal got into the eye business, serving as CEO of the Ein Tal Eye Center, Israel’s largest medical facility dedicated to eye care and surgery, for six years. She has a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an executive MBA from Tel Aviv University.
Belkin Laser is currently conducting a large-scale clinical study in Europe and Israel, with 124 patients at more than 10 sites. The company received $3 million for the study from the EU’s Horizon 2020 program.
Daria Lemann-Blumenthal, CEO of Belkin Laser, speaking at a glaucoma conference. Photo by Trish Tunney Lemann-Blumenthal says Belkin Laser hopes to receive a CE mark for the Eagle to operate in Europe in 2021. Commercialization in the EU is planned for 2022. Approval by the US FDA will be the next step.
But China may be the company’s biggest opportunity. China’s population has the highest amount of narrow angle TM closure in the world. Belkin Laser will start clinical trials in China, Hong Kong and Singapore in 2021 with an “eye” towards commercialization in Asia by 2023.
Patient view of the Belkin Laser Eagle. Photo by Yosee Letova The overall market for glaucoma treatment is $4 billion worldwide. Most of that is for drops but Lemann-Blumenthal expects laser treatment to jump to 25% of the total by 2027.
Belkin Laser has 11 employees in its Yavneh headquarters. The team has been working nonstop, even during Covid-19, says the CEO.
Nor has corona impacted Belkin Laser’s ability to raise money – the company added $12.25 million to its coffers just in July 2020. That followed $6.6 million from the Israel Innovation Authority and Rad BioMed, $3 million from the European Union and a Series A investment of $2.5 million from ZIG Ventures in Singapore.
Interesting. I use drops to keep my glaucoma from advancing.
day AND night...
That's probably why I won't be getting this treatment.
Not to mention the occasional MJ toke.
(I said not to mention that!)
bbb
thanx nick
Yes but will it work on dogs?
My Dad had glaucoma and,as a result,I have to be monitored for it every year (I’m told that it runs in families). My Dad had laser surgery at a large ophthalmology group affiliated with Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary and I now go to that same group.If this device reaches that group...that is,if it’s accepted by the group...then it’s OK with me.
That's probably why I won't be getting this treatment.
The rotating lens on the eye was the old treatment which took ten minutes. The new one doesn't touch the eye and takes seconds. Next year's update just shoots your eye from the optometrist's office while you sit in your car or even drive by slowly.
Why would they not use the eye numbing drops that are used in a normal eye exam?
Okay, that’s the one I want.
I was diagnosed with glaucoma only to find out that my eye nerves were pinched in my back and a chiro released the nerves and saved me $2,500/eye for laser surgery.
PTL for chiros!!
Ive had glaucoma for two years..open angle I think is what I have so Im currently taking drops for it(Lumigan) I havent been to an eye doctor in a year due to this damn pandemic so Ive continued with the drops hope they are still working..this laser treatment, this is a cure for glaucoma?
Same here. I’m going to ask my eye doctor about this laser deal next time I go.
See Post #8
My worry (as I am 70) is a time that I am unable to remember to do that as religiously as I do now and go blind. I suppose that when that time comes, the state of health care won't give a rat's behind what happens to a person of my age.
Use of Lasers to correct and some times heal what is wrong with our eyes is amazing besides the decades old laser corrective surgery.
A decade ago, My cataracts were replaced by the adjustable lenses so I wouldn’t need reading glasses nor glasses for distance. After about a year, I developed floaters and the eye doc used a laser to take out the floaters.
About a year and a half, ago, my wife had the normal cataract replacement lenses installed.
Recently, she was having blurred vision, trouble reading and seeing. Her eye doc had her come in and suggested that I drive and stay with her.
There was some accumulation on the implanted lenses that was impairing her vision. The eye doc use a similar machine and performed a “Posterior Capsulotomy” on both eyes and removed the scum as she called it. It took about 5 minutes per eye and a 10 minute wait in the exam room. Then, she could go home.
After the procedure was over, she walked out using my arm as walker. We put post procedure steroid eye drops in her eyes for a week.
Each day her vision improved, now it is as good as ever.
Do you have some device to remind you, like an Echo?
Just posted a study on a supplement that also greatly helps.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3941757/posts
That would be minor compared with what my mother had to go through, and she lost one eye anyway.
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