The Ministry for the Development of the Negev and Galilee and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor together with the United Joint Israel Appeal (UJIA), the United Israel Appeals Federations Canada , Sacta Rashi Foundation, the Jewish Colonization Association, and the Jewish Agency are due to invest $110 million in establishing “Biotech Valley” near Tel Hai College. “Globes” broke the storey about the joint venture between the college, Meytav Technological Enterprises Innovation Center Ltd. in Kiryat Shmona, and the MIGAL - Galilee Technology Center, which is intended to attract top-quality biomedical researchers to live and work in the Upper Galilee.
The project will be presented to investors, entrepreneurs and the Ministries of Industry and Science and Technology during a conference to be held in Kiryat Shmona in June. The project’s planners believe that a Biotech Valley industrial park will be set up with an initial 20 start-ups, half of which will be in the development stage, and at least one large anchor company. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) already has a facility at Tel Hai College.
These companies can potentially raise $250 million, and are expected to employ 250-300 people. The project planners say that the industrial park will leverage other business activity in the area. Each high-tech job generates an estimated 2.5 jobs in other sectors.
Meytav Technological Incubator CEO Zvika Rubinstein said, “Academic-industrial cooperation and the provision of infrastructures and services at a super-incubator level will turn Kiryat Shmona into a center of gravity for Israeli companies and foreign investors. Meytav’s experience has taught us that a concentration of infrastructures, human capital, and advanced services will bring private investors to the Galilee. We believe that there’s a need for government support to drive the idea forward, but most of the subsequent financing will probably come from private sources.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 26, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007