Medical devices start-ups Biocontrol Medical Ltd. and Neovasc Ltd. (TSX: NVC) have both announced layoffs, but both companies insist that they are unrelated to the global economic crisis.
Biocontrol laid off nine of its 33 employees. CEO Ehud Cohen said that the layoffs were a natural process following the successful completion of its pilot trial on humans, held in Europe. "With the completion of the trial, there was no more work for the Israeli team running it. In a few months, we'll begin a larger trial in the US, and we will hire a new clinical team that will be based there," he said.
Biocontrol is developing implantable devices for the treatment of autonomic disorders, in which the nervous system ceases to function properly, disrupting the control of involuntary body processes. The company's CardioFit system aims to treat heart failure by vagus nerve stimulation.
Neovasc has fired 25% of its staff, amounting to 15 employees. The company is developing vascular intervention products. It was created by Philip Frost from the merger of two Israeli start-ups (Neovasc Medical and B-Balloon) and Canadian company, Medical Ventures Corporation, and is now headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company claims that the layoffs are the natural result of the merger, which resulted in redundancies.
Neovasc had just C$118,000 at the end of June and lost C$3 million in the first half of the year. It obtained an investment of C$8.3 million in the third quarter and had C$866,000 in sales during the quarter.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 5, 2008
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