Ilan Sobel knew that he could not allow a Hamas rocket launch to stop his product launch.
The CEO of BioHarvest said that after his company spent $35 million during 12 years of research and development, got 14 patents and had three successful clinical trials, nothing would prevent him from bringing his new product, Vinia, to the American market, even when he had to give marching orders to his staff from his phone in a bomb shelter in May.
“Whether there are rockets flying or sirens, you take it in stride and do what you have to do when you have shareholders and commitments,” said Sobel, 47, in a phone interview from Israel. “Like typical Israelis, we learn how to deal with challenges. We pulled it off. It’s part of the culture we have as a company. All challenges can be overcome. Nothing was gonna stop us.”
Sobel, who has quite a pedigree from his 18 years as an executive with the Coca-Cola Company to working with Anheuser Busch, said he had an unusual path to become the CEO.
“I initially came in as an investor,” Sobel said. “I had tons of questions, and for each one they had a great answer. When I looked at the science, and saw the results of the clinical trials, I said to myself, ‘Holy macaroni, this is the needle in the haystack idea that business executives salivate over.’”
SO WHAT is the science behind Vinia, a biofood that is said to be a new category of superfood, that got him so excited? Sobel said in baseball, any fan can see when a ball is hit over the fence, it is a home run, no questions asked. But to know if a supplement is a home run and really works, there are questions consumers need to ask, other than some basic points specific to Vinia, that it has no sugar, alcohol, calories and is non-GMO.
Is it soluble? If so, the supplement can be dissolved into your gastrointestinal tract. Is it bio-available? If so, can the supplement be well absorbed into the blood plasma in order to reach your organs? Is it effective – does it have clinical trials backing it or other scientific evidence?
He said Vinia, which comes from the skin of red grapes, has a secret sauce in it that delivers Rapid Absorption Piceid Resveratrol. It is 25 times more soluble than its competition, which involves Resveratrol from Japanese knotweed. And he said it is a bull’s eye on bio-availability as Vinia enters your bloodstream in about 20 minutes, has peaks after one hour and five hours and stays in you for 12 hours. This is opposed to other supplements, where due to a lack of bioavailability, you may send out the health benefits in your urine.
“We plan to disrupt the supplement market in America not just by selling a great product, but by first educating the consumer,” Sobel said. “We don’t need to sell you with a catchy slogan. We will sell you with the real science that we’ve caught up to.”
SOBEL PRAISED co-founder and Chief Technical Officer Yochi Hagay, and said she was instrumental in coming up with the new biofarming technology, which is great for the environment. Why? It is sustainable since they grow the cells in a controlled environment with a very small footprint with no heavy metals, pesticides, fertilizers and little waste, she said.
“Not only are we saving hundreds of acres of land that we would have needed if not for our biofarming technology, but we also avoid solvents that would harm the earth,” Hagay said.
She added that her team of five female scientists worked well together.
“It just turned out that way that the scientists happened to be female,” she said. “We worked very well together and communicated extremely well.”
She recalled the day she saw the evidence that the new technology worked and she excitedly called her husband and then called the company’s co-founder, and president, Zaki Rakib. She said she had no crystal ball but knew a decade ago were cannabis to become legal, it would be a product that would be helpful to consumers and of course profitable for the company.
“I am not a prophet,” she said. “But I can tell you for sure that Vinia will help a lot of people and our second product, which will be cannabis, will also help many consumers around the world.”
The core demographic of consumers will be those 50 and above who may have a specific benefit they are looking for or those 40 and above who are simply health conscious, Sobel said, citing two of the product’s main benefits.
“Vinia supports heart health by increasing the dilation of your arteries and veins,” Sobel said. “Vinia also improves your energy level and increases mental alertness due to increased blood flow and delivery of oxygen to your body’s tissues and organs.”
Sobel explained the double action benefit of Vinia. As people age, there is an increase of Endothelin 1, which causes arteries and blood vessels to stiffen. Vinia reduces the production of ET-1 in the body while at the same time, it increases the nitric oxide levels, increasing blood flow by dilating the arteries.
One clinical trial showed increased dilation of the arteries by at least 70% for those who took Vinia daily for three months.
A USER of the product himself, Sobel says he no longer needs coffee or energy drinks.
“This is a crucial time after we’ve had 18 months of COVID where people are especially health-conscious,” he said. “I take one Vinia pill if I’ve gotten six hours of sleep. I work 18-hour days, five days a week, and if I haven’t gotten enough sleep, I’ll take two pills.”
The company boasts Rakib, 62, who invented the first cable modem, has a Ph.D in engineering from Ben-Gurion University and co-founded Terayon Communication Systems, as its co-founder, president and chairman.
“I wanted to make a dent in the health industry and wanted to do something that would prevent problems beforehand instead of being an intervention after something has gone bad,” Rakib said. “Instead of developing a drug that would cost billions of dollars and take many years to come to market, we realized we could build a platform of biofarming where the technology could be used with several products. I was fortunate to make a lot of money in the telecom world, and I wanted to use my resources to come up with something that would improve people’s quality of life.”
He joked that he’s been the company’s guinea pig, taking Vinia for the past five years and said it greatly increased his energy, alertness and has other benefits he can’t yet disclose. He said he has faith the American customers will understand why the science behind Vinia is unprecedented and revolutionary.
“I think American consumers have matured since the days where you could sell them snake oil,” Rakib said. “There will still be some people who buy snake-oil, but that number has drastically decreased because now people can do research on the Internet, compare products and see that our scientific elements are proven. We want to connect to the consumer emotionally and mentally. We’re bringing science first and raising that flag as high as possible.”
He noted that the company has a team of five female scientists, led by Hagay, who has a Ph.D from Hebrew University.
THE WEBSITE and some ads showcase visuals done by David Bolinsky, 69, who is America’s leading medical animator/illustrator. His work has been used by the likes of Harvard, Yale, Disney and the Gates Foundation. He quit his job at Yale to start his own medical animation company more than 40 years ago, knowing he would have to wait for technology to catch up to what he wanted to do, namely using computers to improve upon his hand-drawings.
“My wife says I’m the kind of guy who will jump off a cliff and try to grow wings before I go splat,” he said.
Bolinsky recalled being in heaven when as a teen he snuck into museums to study models and illustrations, and was inspired by his high school science teacher, who told him he could make a living from the illustrations he made in the margins of his notes. He said BioHarvest will fly high because of its ability to tease out desirable elements from plants in a way that maximizes health benefits and is good for the environment.
“This is a whole new ballgame,” Bolinsky said. “These are things that could not be done before. In some cases, I’m asked to dumb down the science to reach the lowest rung of consumer, but here, the consumer’s intrinsic intelligence is honored. The coolest thing is when it clicks in the consumer’s head and they say, ‘Whoa, so that’s going on inside my body. I didn’t know that.’ More and more, Americans are waking up and caring about sustainability and they will see that certainly is the case here.”
He also joked, “With what’s in some other supplements, it’s actually better than you pee it out before it gets to your organs.”
SOBEL SAID the company is the first to harvest cannabis in a lab and it will be its second product after Vinia. The timing is fortuitous as more and more states are legalizing marijuana. Sobel said the quality of the strain they will produce will be jaw-dropping.
“It will be great for medicinal purposes,” Sobel said, while Rakib said he believes it will help those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, though clinical trials on that product have not been done yet.
Down the road, BioHarvest will offer other products with varying health benefits as they will harvest cells from olives and pomegranates.
Ask any American if they’re aware of an Israeli product and they might name SodaStream. There’s a good chance that if Sobel is correct, they will soon know Vinia. The supplement market in the United States is a $46 billion industry. With the current political climate, is there a worry that some might boycott Vinia because of its Israeli ties?
“Listen, it’s a democracy and people have their own ideas and can do what they want,” Sobel said. “Firstly, I imagine it would only be a small percentage of people. And second, our product is not political. It’s about wellness and helping people to live better. I think for most people, once they understand that, they would want it.”
As to how to drive users to the website, they will use Facebook, YouTube and other social media tools, including influencers.
The company invented biofarming and is able to take any plant, grow cells, remove the negative qualities while keeping the positive ones. In the case of Vinia, the consumer gets the positive qualities from an entire bottle of red wine in one capsule.
Sobel noted that Vinia, manufactured and sold in Israel, a country of 9 million people, has already acquired about 6,000 customers since it launched its e-commerce program in October. It is kosher under the Israeli rabbinate. For the USA, they will receive kosher certification in the fall, likely by October. BioHarvest has offices in Israel and Canada.
RAKIB SAID the selection of Sobel as CEO was a key factor in the company’s success because of his honesty, his tremendous work ethic and his ability to build a team with a culture that is positive and determined to overcome any obstacle in its way, though he admits he did not foresee a pandemic or rocket-fire.
Sobel has been lucky not only in business, he’s been lucky in love. He said he’s known his wife since she was 11 and was re-introduced to her several times and they began a relationship. When it was time to pop the question, he got a small diamond he could afford and flew to South Africa to propose to her. She said yes, and they lived in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Shanghai, Johannesburg and New York but when his children got older, he decided the family would make aliyah because he is a Zionist and wanted stability for his family after he moved around so much himself. He was born in South Africa, moved to Australia, where he did most of his high school and university education, studied a semester abroad at Babson College in the Boston area, spent a year studying in Israel, and has lived the life of a global citizen. Ironically, he interned with Pepsi Cola but would wind up helping to defeat it in a marketing war while working with Coca-Cola. No doubt, Sobel can afford plenty of diamonds now. But he said it’s not all
about the Benjamins.
“You can make money in many different jobs,” he said. “This is the forefront of a new technology that will help people live better lives. I love my wife. I love my kids. And I love this planet. I want to take care of all of the above and leave this planet to my grandchildren in a better place than it was when I first got here.”