Investors from 60 leading US financial institutions, including UBS AG (NYSE; SWX: UBS), Oppenheimer & Co., Needham & Co. LLC, and JPMorgan Chase Inc., met representatives from 14 Israel biomed companies at the TASE-Nasdaq Biomed Conference this week.
The participating Israeli companies were Aposense Ltd. (TASE: APOS), BiolineRX Ltd. (TASE:BLRX), Brainsway Ltd. (TASE:BRIN), Clal Biotechnology Industries Ltd. (TASE: CBI), Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE: CGEN), D Medical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: DMED); TASE:DMDC), D-Pharm Ltd. (TASE: DPRM), Evogene Ltd. (TASE:EVGN), Hadasit Bio Holdings Ltd. (TASE:HDST), Itamar Medical Ltd. (TASE:ITMR), Kamada Ltd. (TASE: KMDA), Mazor Surgical Technologies Ltd. (TASE:MZOR), Prolor Biotech Inc. (AMEX: PBTH; TASE: PBTH), and Protalix Biotherapeutics Inc. (AMEX:PLX).
The 14 companies were among the 17 companies approached by the TASE. They have the highest market caps among biomed companies. Most of the companies are developing drugs; relatively few are developing medical devices. Most have a platform of potential products, but are not one-product companies, and almost all have them have sufficient cash reserves for at least six months of operations.
The conference was organized with the goal of attracting foreign investment to Israeli biomed companies, and as part of an ambitious program by TASE CEO Esther Levanon to turn the TASE into a focus of attention for foreign technology companies, even companies with no affiliation to Israel, to opt to list on the TASE.
Nasdaq executives want more Israeli companies to list on it, the world's largest stock exchange for high-tech companies, despite the lack of success by biomed companies' IPOs in the past couple of years, and especially in the past couple of weeks.
The situation on the TASE is little different, with biomed companies cancelling planned IPOs, but both stock exchanges hope for better climes in 2011.
Oppenheimer head of biotech and specialty pharma Stuart Barich knows the participating Israeli companies well. "They're good, and it's important to meet with people who care about Israel. When they reach Nasdaq, their value will rise, as happened with Protalix on the AMEX." It should be kept in mind that Barich makes his living from Nasdaq IPOs.
Barich was unconcerned by recently IPO failures. "The IPOs were not specific to the industry, but to the company. For the Israeli companies here, it won't be an IPO because they already have a value set in Israel, a kind of floor for a biomed investor."
The conference enabled the Israeli companies to meet top-notch investors without paying mediation fees. Itamar Medical co-chairman Dr. Giora Yaron said, "The investors at these conferences remember the companies for one day. In a week, they get confused between us, even if they're left with the general impression that Israeli biomed is a success. If there was a biomed ETF, the marketing of the sector in the US would be much more effective."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 9, 2010
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010