Ashkelon Technological Industries (ATI) has decided not to take portfolio company, human and avian flu treatment developer BioVent Ltd., public at this time. Last month, BioVent planned to acquire stock market shell Cidav Printed Circuits Ltd. (TASE:CIDA) in a reverse merger.
BioVent was established on the basis of research by Prof. Ruth Arnon, who also discovered Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd's (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) multiple sclerosis drug, Copaxone. BioVent's drug blocks viruses from infecting blood cells and is aimed as a treatment for people already infected with the virus. The single product is aimed at treating a range of influenza strains, including strains that do not yet exist.
ATI owns 27% of BioVent, Canada-Israel Development Corporation, controlled by Assaf Tuchmayer and Barak Rosen,owns 51%, Eli Hurvitz's Pontifax Fund owns 15%, and Arnon owns 6%.
In a notice to the TASE on Thursday, Cidav that BioVent had notified that it that ATI opposed the reverse merger, and that the deal was off.
ATI believes that it is premature for BioVent to go public, since the company's product is still at the preclinical development stage.
The sale of Cidav's printed circuit board manufacturing business to Kibbutz Hanita for NIS 3.5 million will still go ahead. Canada-Israel will then acquire the stock market shell for NIS 4 million. Tuchmayer and Rosen have not yet decided what to do with the shell, but market sources believe that the will use it to make a reverse merge with another biomedical company.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 25, 2010
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010