When a company's called Ohh Med, you can start to guess what it does. "The truth is that it started with Oh My God Medical," admits the company's founder and CEO Daniel Lischinsky. "Then we shortened it to Oh Med, but that was taken, so we added an 'h'."
The product that the company has developed is, as Lischinsky puts it, "a gym for erections." "In order for there to be an erection, blood has to flow into the flexible arteries, and not escape. What 'locks' the blood within the organ is a layer of collagen and elastin, which envelops the organ, a kind of condom under the skin. It prevents the blood that enters the blood vessels from leaking out.
"From age 23-24, we lose a little of the collagen's function every year. Our device can warm the collagen without harming the external skin layer of the penis, and in effect put it back a few years. Women can treat the pelvic floor; until now, a man has not had a corresponding ability."
Does the world need an erectile dysfunction solution in addition to Viagra?
"Pills like Viagra make the blood vessels relax, and so a great deal of blood flows into the penis, but they don't lock it in. So Viagra works for 75% of men. Introducing blood won’t help anyone who has a leak; it's like a condom with the tip cut off.
"And among those that Viagra can help, not everyone can take it, because of blood pressure and diabetes. And you mustn't imbibe alcohol while you're taking it, and you have to calculate when to take the pill before the act. It's a whole story.
"In a trial we carried out at Rambam Hospital on thirty patients, some abandoned the pill, some reduced the dose, and some were happier with the dose they were taking."
Lischinsky mentions another advantage, which is that the treatment does not require a visit to the doctor. "The statistics show that it takes two years for a man to go the doctor with the problem, and in the meantime he looks things up on Google and buys all sorts of magic powders and loses precious time. We'll be the first medical product that it will be possible to order even at that stage."
Viral marketing is presumably not your strategy.
"That's the thing, that to acknowledge that you need help in order to achieve and maintain an erection is something no-one's prepared to do. But when you talk about 'improving erections', the conversation is different, particularly among men of a certain age. When I talk about what I do, everyone volunteers to try it."
A pleasant feeling of warmth
"The device is like wings in which you place the organ, and there are pulses of energy and sensors that check the electrical response of the tissues and the temperature, to ensure safety. The sensation is of a pleasant warmth. We have clients who are amused by it and enjoy it," says Lischinsky.
"The treatment protocol is three times a week for a month and then once or twice a week, or however each person feels. In the trial at Rambam we saw that, after two months of treatment, 89% reported a benefit, and the result was maintained for six months."
The next stage is a larger trial in Florida, this time with a control group, in coordination with the US Food and Drug Administration. In Israel, the product is approved for sale as a medical device without prescription. The launch is expected in February, and for the time being pre-sale orders are being taken.
Production was set up in Tiberias, and not by chance, Lischinsky declares. "All the production will be in Israel, including the plastic, at a factory called Medimor, which where we are essentially based. I hope that this will be the first of several factories."
A project for the benefit of humanity
Lischinsky was also the founder, and for a while the chief scientist, of Endymed Medical, currently traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a market cap of NIS 76 million. Endymed developed technology for warming the inner layer of facial skin, to encourage renewal of the collagen fibers, and create in the skin a more solid appearance. "Warming the inner layer without warming the outer layer is basically what all the companies in this field want to do," says Lischinsky.
What happened to Endymed? We expected it to take off more than it has.
"What happened to Endymed is that I didn't run it. I've learned the lesson since then."
After leaving Endymed, Lischinsky stayed in a hotel in Beijing and looked for more applications for manipulation of collagen. "Suddenly I came across an article by Abbott Laboratories that made a connection between the quality of collagen and the quality of an erection, and I said 'Wow'. I was in shock. From that moment, I started to read all the articles in the field, and then I started to arrange meetings with urologists in Israel. I asked one urologist whom I respected highly to read about this area, and within a few days he got back to me and said there was something worth talking about.
"I approached industrialists in Israel who knew me and who invested at the seed stage, despite the huge risk. I built the product at home, and we did the regulation at Rambam. And then we came to the best investor in Israel, Arbelon Holdings, which belongs to someone who guards their privacy but whose goal is not money but ideology, and our project is a project for the good of humanity as far as they are concerned."
Lischinsky says that he founded Ohh Med as the first of a group of companies that will use collagen rehabilitation technology in various fields.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 20, 2021.
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