Drug development company Kamada Ltd. (Nasdaq: KMDA); TASE: KMDA) last Friday announced that it had reached agreement with the Brosh Capital activist fund on the appointment three new directors. Brosh has a 7.2% stake in Kamada. Kamada's share responded to the announcement with a 2.49% jump, pushing the company's market cap up to NIS 629 million.
The new directors on Kamada's board are Brosh representative Asaf Frumerman, Dr. Itzhak Krinsky, and Shmuel Rubinstein. Krinsky, who is currently chairman of Teva Japan and Teva South Korea, previously managed two investment houses in New York. Rubinstein left his position as CEO of generics company Taro Pharmaceutical Industries after Sun Pharma acquired the company.
Candidates for re-election to Kamada's board of directors include chairman Leon Recanati, Jonathan Hahn, deputy chairman David Tsur, Dr. Michael Berelowitz, Dr. Abraham Havron, and Gwen Malincoff. Another director, Saadia Ozeri, is resigning to facilitate the new appointments.
Through a partner, Shire, Kamada manufactures and markets in the US a drug for treatment of hereditary emphysema. It also recently registered for marketing in the US a new rabies vaccine, and has marketing activity in Israel. The company believes that this business will generate $100 million in revenue in 2017.
The company's share, however, plunged 13% following the failure of a trial of a product for treating hereditary emphysema administered by IV. Another trial of the same protein for treatment of diabetes ended several weeks ago without statistically significant results.
One important decision facing Kamada's board of directors and management is whether to continue developing these products, all of which are based on the same protein as the company's leading product, or to forego them in favor of new products purchased outside the company. As far as is known, the board of directors as a whole, including the new directors appointed under the agreement with Brosh, has no definite opinion on these matters.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on November 13, 2017
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