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December 17, 2010
Israel in television spotlight
Robotic aid appeared on an episode of the popular show Glee.
NICKY BLACKBURN ISRAEL21C
When Artie Abrams, the disabled member of West McKinley High School’s glee club gets up and walks on Glee’s Christmas special with the aid of a robotic exoskeleton, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.
”It was invented by some guy in Israel,” says Artie, played by actor Kevin McHale, one of the popular TV show’s most endearing characters, a paraplegic teenager who knows how to belt out a great tune.
It’s a poignant moment for viewers who have watched Artie deal with the pressures of being wheelchair-bound in an able-bodied and deeply prejudiced society. But for Argo Medical Technologies, the Israeli company that created this unique technology that gives wheelchair users the opportunity to walk, climb stairs and meet the world eye to eye, the show, which aired in North America this week, marks a significant turning point in the company’s history.
July 2008 marked the first time that Argo Medical had been featured in the press. The company, then a seven-year-old start-up, and the team behind the quasi-robotic exoskeleton, which includes leg braces with motorized joints and motion sensors, a brace support suit and a backpack with a computer and battery, were interested to see what kind of response the device would get.
Little did they realize what they were in for. The story was quickly picked up by popular blogs like MedGadget, Gizmodo, and Engadget, as well as blogs serving the disabled community. Soon after, Reuters followed up with a video of the device.
The story was then reported everywhere, from the National Post to Italy’s Corriere della Serra, TV stations around the world and even by the Teheran Times.
Since that first wave of interest, Argo has been working hard to develop and test the technology with clinical trials at the Moss Rehabilitation Centre in Philadelphia and at the Rehabilitation Hospital at Chaim Sheba Medical Centre-Tel Hashomer in Israel.
The 12-employee company has already received health, safety and environmental approval in Europe, and has U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use in rehabilitation centres and approval for personal use is expected to follow.
Just over a month ago, according to Oren Tamari, Argo’s chief operating officer, the company got an unexpected call from the producers of Glee.
“It’s Christmas magic,” Tamari joked. “They approached us and it all happened very fast.”
ReWalk goes on sale in 2011 and is expected to cost about $100,000. “We’re going to start sales very slowly, one customer at a time, so we can give everyone good service,” Tamari said, adding that the company expects to initially sell four units, then move up to six, and so on. “We will grow slowly, slowly,” he said.
Aside from enabling users to walk, using crutches for stability and support, the seven-pound device also treats some of the cardiovascular, digestive and circulatory health complications that many wheelchair users suffer.
The exoskeleton has a moving story of its own. It was the brainchild of an Israeli electrical engineer, Dr. Amit Goffer, who was left quadriplegic after an accident. He decided to develop a system that allows wheelchair users to walk, climb stairs and meet the world on the same level. After intensive rehabilitation, Goffer began developing the ReWalk prototype in his home, funding it privately and with a grant. He later got financing from venture capital funds and Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist.
“What we want to do is have the person wake up in the morning, put on clothes, put on the ReWalk, go to work and go throughout the day, wearing it,” said Goffer, the founder and director of Argo, in an earlier interview.
Now based in Yokneam in Israel’s north, the company’s target market is the community of wheelchair users in the Western world, of which 300,000 are spinal cord injury sufferers (approximately 36,000 in Canada) who are physically able to use crutches as a stabilizing tool.
While ReWalk holds out hope for thousands of people, sadly, the man who devised the system still cannot benefit from his own invention. Goffer has partial use of his hands, but it is not enough to operate the ReWalk.
In 2008, Goffer told reporters: “This isn’t the first company I’ve founded. My incentive to develop it was a business opportunity. When I was injured the first thing I was offered was the only thing: a wheelchair. I do believe that, in the future, in many cases, the ReWalk – or its competition – might be offered. I don’t see any reason for the wheelchair to be the sole solution. There hasn’t been a real change [in the technology] for centuries.
“We’re taking a safe business approach, starting with paraplegics, and the time for a quadriplegic like me will come,” he added.
Back at Glee, some attribute the generous present to Artie as a present from “Beast,” the high school football coach. Others are calling it a Christmas miracle.
Israel21C is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.
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