Before joining BioLight Life Sciences, an Israel-based publicly traded venture capital fund focused on ophthalmology, CEO Yaacov Michlin considered starting his own healthcare VC fund. Instead, he now finds himself leading a smaller fund within a vibrant community of startups.

Although it’s a publicly traded company, BioLight operates like many VC funds, working both with early-stage companies and as an acquisition partner. Of the former, BioLight helps entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas develop target profiles and a vision for their products’ pathways.

With nine companies in its portfolio that span drug, diagnostic, and device, and both front- and back-of-the-eye therapeutic areas, BioLight encourages synergies within its portfolio and within the collaborative environment that Israel is known for.

Companies to watch include DiagnosTear, a diagnostics company with a platform that analyzes tear fluid. The platform uploads analyses to the cloud, creating a closed-loop system, Yaacov says.

Listen to this OIS Podcast with host Rob Rothman, MD to discover:

• The potential advantages of a publicly traded VC firm. 
• How the tech transfer process works in Israel. (Yaacov is the former president and CEO of Yissum, the tech transfer company of Hebrew University, Israel’s largest research university.) 
• How The Technion—Israel Institute of Technology and Technion DRIVE Accelerator fuel Israel’s startup environment.  
• How the financial relationship works between BioLight and its portfolio companies.  
• More on the BioLight portfolio, which includes ViSci, a glaucoma implant, and OphRx, a delivery mechanism for products such as cyclosporine.

Click “play” to listen