An Israeli company has committed to immediately ship 200,000 cans of baby formula from its plant in Mexico to the United States in a first step to help solve the country’s infant food crisis.
At the same time, an Orthodox Jewish Israeli who works in Christian outreach has started his own impromptu outreach, delivering two suitcases of formula to Texas churches.
MyOr is a Tel Aviv-based healthcare tech company that develops precision technologies to maintain infant health. The company has developed a digital platform for predicting food allergies and eczema from birth, as well as a non-invasive hemoglobin test using a smartphone camera.
It also has a line of formula products, including specialty formulas for babies with allergies or who were born prematurely. One of those is AlphaCare, which is produced in Mexico – just over the border from the United States where the infant formula shortage has spiked to as high as 74%.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency decision that enables the import of infant formulas from abroad. MyOr promptly answered the call, and 10 days ago, submitted the paperwork to enable the immediate import of its formula, MyOr’s Chief Technology Officer Michael Brandwein told ALL ISRAEL NEWS.
“We’re just waiting for the FDA,” he said, noting that the company has 200,000 cans ready to ship and has earmarked half-a-million more cans that could enter the U.S. in the coming months.
“MyOr has received numerous requests from distressed retailers in the U.S. eager to supply our products,” said MyOr CEO Ariel Katz. “We’re talking about the most basic and humane act of providing newborn babies with nutrition.
“MyOr has made supporting the community of parents in the U.S. our No. 1 priority, and we’ve prepared a huge stock of specialty infant formula to ship immediately,” he said.
Brandwein said the FDA has already confirmed receipt of the forms and been in contact with the company. He believes the permission could come any day now.
“We are closing in on that approval,” he said. “We have ticked off almost all the boxes by now and maybe the next response will be an ‘all clear.’”
He said that MyOr’s formulas are made with ingredients already approved by the FDA, which will make it easier to continue supplying formula to the U.S. with full marketing approval even after the shortage has subsided.
“Some countries are trying to jump in and they have new ingredients that the FDA has never approved but we are not in that field at all,” Brandwein said, noting that MyOr is working with a U.S. distributor to streamline delivery.
