NewStem Ltd., a Jerusalem-based biotech with a novel precision-medicine technology that can increase chemotherapy’s effectiveness, today announced a $4 million seed financing from a publicly-traded US-based company to be named NovelStem International Corp. NewStem is a spinoff of Yissum, The Technology Transfer Company of The Hebrew University.

Hollywood Media Corp. announced the strategic transformation of the Company, its management and Board through an initial $2 million investment in Jerusalem, Israel-based NewStem Ltd. and a refocusing of HMC on the substantial commercial potential of NewStem’s novel diagnostic technology which can predict patients’ resistance to chemotherapy allowing for better, targeted cancer treatments and the potential to reduce resistance to chemotherapy. Drug resistance is a major cause of treatment failure in cancer chemotherapy, and currently it is only recognized after the first course of treatment has been completed. In nearly 50% of all cancer cases, resistance to chemotherapy already exists in the tumors before initiation of the treatment.