Here is a good article from WSJ online by Jonathan Matsey.
The Israeli life science industry was in the spotlight recently, when Medtronic Inc. agreed to pay $325 million up-front for Netanya-based Ventor Technologies Ltd., which had raised $17 million in venture financing in part from Pitango Venture Capital. While the deal was great for Ventor’s investors, Rafi Hofstein, chairman of Hadasit Bio-Holdings Ltd., a publicly traded tech-transfer company for Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Hospital, said it highlights a problem with the country’s life science industry: the inability to develop home-grown companies to fruition. And despite the global economic downturn and the re-location of many of the country’s drug and device companies overseas, Hofstein said government policy – and a possible $240 million public-sponsored biotech fund – may ultimately reignite Israel’s life science industry.
Read the full article here
Blog of Intellectual Capital 