Antidepressant Blood Test: End Years of Trial-and-Error on the First Try | NeuroKaire

Finding the right antidepressant can take years and several wrong medications. NeuroKaire CEO Dr. Talia Cohen Solal is working to change that with a blood test that uses AI and patient-derived neurons to match you to the right antidepressant sooner — bringing precision medicine to the mental health crisis. 

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Transcript

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 0:00

Precision medicine for depression, we take a simple blood draw, we create your brain in a dish, and then we measure the connections. Finally, we have this window into your brain telling you which drug your brain is going to respond to. Not a brain, not the population on average, your brain. So it's a totally game-changing technology. Once you've built a brain in a dish, you can apply it to different brain disorders.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 0:31

Depression steals joy from 280 million people around the world. That steals months, sometimes years, while doctors are trying medication after medication, hoping to find the one that clicks. Most patients have a long period of trial and error. And here is a game-changing new blood test. Precision medicine for the brain, created in Israel to help your daily life that could help you find your perfect antidepressant in a matter of weeks. Israel, smaller than New Jersey, quietly revolutionizing brain health while the media focuses on other things. We talk about this. Welcome to the Israeli Trailblazer Show. I am Jennifer Weisman, and Dr. Talia Cohen Solal is here to share how her company, NeuroKaire's Breakthrough Blood Test, could transform hundreds of millions of lives by ending the guesswork around depression. We are talking about customized neurology now. Welcome, Doctor. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's 2026, and someone suffering from depression walks into their doctor's office desperately seeking help and the right medication. Walk me through the current system and what happens to this patient.

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 1:50

The physician, if he's lucky enough to have the time with the patient, asks a bit about their background, a bit about the different triggers and causes and maybe other drugs that they might have been on in the past. There are 70 different types of medication and delivery methods, and they have to guess which one is going to be best for that patient based on that information they've collected. Many times the patient doesn't respond. They take about four to eight weeks for the physician to kind of maybe optimize the dose or see if the symptoms are starting to improve. And then if it doesn't, they start on the next drug and then the next drug.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 2:23

What's the typical time frame between a patient enters a doctor's office for depression to the end game of actually finding the right drug and the right dose for that patient?

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 2:34

They say that it takes about 12 to 18 months to get a patient onto the best medication for them.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 2:40

Wow. And I would imagine that's a very miserable time for both the patient and the family.

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 2:45

It's heartbreaking. You can lose your life place, it is how they define it. You can lose your social group, your friends, lose a relationship, fall out in the school environment or in the marriage environment. And everything just gets harder to get back to normal afterwards. Getting faster to the best outcome for you is really important for living the best life.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 3:06

I read something about it's like the number one disability depression. I don't know if that's an accurate statistic, but it's startling.

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 3:14

It oscillates the leading cause of disability globally, or number two. You have developed proprietary blood testing.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 3:22

Walk me through what your amazing blood test profile is.

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 3:27

Personally, I'm a neuroscientist by training. I spent about a decade in academia across Oxford, UCL, and Columbia looking at underlying mechanisms of disease. And I was building these brains in a dish, we call them. So these are neurons in a dish from any patient, which can be taken from a simple blood draw. There's a large body of evidence supporting that in depression, you have a reduced connectivity between the cells in your brain, between your neurons. And when a drug is effective, you have increased that, increased motivation, increased reward, increased joy. We take a simple blood draw, we create your brain in a dish, and then we measure the connections, the number, the type, the strength of those connections, and we see which drug rescues your mental health best. So you take the brain in a dish, customized for each patient. Exactly. And you test that against every single antidepressant on the market? Our platform is testing the most commonly prescribed ones. We test the most likely prescribed antidepressants on the market on your personalized model and give you your personalized recommendation to really short circuit that trial and error process to the best one from the start. What's the blood test called? Bright care. Bright care is available nationwide in America, and uh we're changing patient lives. What is the secret sauce between bright care? How does it actually work? This is the first time that we've had a window into the brain. We're used to saying, Cancer, I'm gonna go take a biopsy and then they're gonna help design my treatment protocol. There's never been anything so scientific in mental health. And finally, we have this model of the brain, your window into your brain, telling you which drug your brain is going to respond to, not a brain, not the population on average, your brain. So it's a totally game-changing technology. I know it's proprietary technology, but how does it work? There are two facets. First, that simple blood draw, normal blood draw, nothing unusual. But we take those blood cells, we turn them first into stem cells using stem cell technology, and then from stem cells have the potential to become any cell type, we bring them down the pathway to become neurons. So that's called human-induced pluripotent derived stem cells, you know, rolls off the tongue. We've developed the fastest and most efficient protocols for that that we know of. And then you combine that with computer vision and AI to read in an automated manner of which of the drugs that we've exposed those neurons to has the strongest impact on connections. So it's a marriage between biology and AI, which allows us to tell patients what drugs is going to be best for them. This is precision medicine for depression. Are doctors excited about this incredible bright care technology? So many doctors are really excited by finally having a scientific and evidence based to help them with their prescribing profiles. It's important to note that 50% of antidepressants are being prescribed by family practitioners, family or nurse practitioners, the train therapists who are able to prescribe medications. So lots of people who don't necessarily have all that training and wealth of experience the psychiatrists have, but because of the wait lists and the difficulty to access psychiatrists are forced to be helping with the medications in a space they're not fully trained. So they're also really excited about having a tool to help this population.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 7:03

I would imagine it's a big cost savings, too, from a healthcare perspective, because if you have a patient who is doing well and satisfied on the drug regimen, you probably don't get 14 phone calls and doctor's appointments and repeat care.

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 7:18

So that's just the beginning. Hospitalizations are high, very expensive and comorbidity. So you end up with other diseases like diabetes and smoking and all these other illnesses. So the insurance companies save $7,000 per patient per year by getting a patient onto the right drug.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 7:36

That's absolutely amazing. So you've built this precision brain-based, brain in a dish, as you're calling it. Are there opportunities for other indications with this other than depression?

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 7:49

Certainly. NeuroKaire is devoted to precision medicine for the brain. Well, Dr. Talia Cohen Solal ocare neurokaire is committed to precision medicine for the brain. So we already have a partnership in Alzheimer's. Our next indication will be ADHD, followed by schizophrenia, bipolar, and epilepsy.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 8:05

You must feel a lot of personal satisfaction in seeing people actually get the right treatment quickly at the right dose.

Dr. Talia Cohen Solal, CEO NeuroKaire 8:18

It's really inspiring, motivating. Somebody's sitting in Naples or Minneapolis and they need this blood test. How do they get it? There are two ways to get the blood test. They could go straight to our website, click get started, and we can get them the blood test prescribed, and then they can get it from any Quest lab in America or at home phlebotomy. Amazing. Brightcare is offering the first test available on the market to take the guesswork out of selecting the right medication for depression, taking patients to the best solution from them from the start.

Jennifer Weissmann, Host 8:49

Depression is one of the leading causes of disability in the world. Brightcare is ending months of unnecessary suffering with one blood test, precision medicine for the brain, created in Israel to help your daily life. If you know someone struggling with depression, share this episode. The right treatment should not be months to find. This is the Israeli Trailblazer Show, and I am Jennifer Weisman. Please hit subscribe. See you next time.