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