Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F) said that its board of governors has approved $14 million in investment in 16 new joint projects, with an aggregate budget of $45 million. All the projects are collaborations between Israeli and US companies.
Among the projects approved are ventures in homeland security, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology, such as the joint development by Foamix Ltd. and Warner Chilcott of an innovative acne treatment.
The latest round of projects receiving funding from BIRD-F also include several ventures in media and entertainment such as the joint development by Optium Corp. (Nasdaq: OPTM) subsidiary Optium Israel and Sierrra Monolithics of a short-reach transponder for 100G Ethernet applications for Internet video conferencing. Also receiving investment from BIRD-F is a joint development by Axxana and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) of a data recovery system, and a collaboration between Human Monitoring Ltd. and Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN) on a high definition encoder for DaVinci digital signal processors.
BIRD fosters, promotes and supports industrial R&D projects of mutual benefit to the US and Israel. Its board of governors has approved $250 million in investment to date in more than 740 projects that have yielded direct and indirect revenue of more than $8 billion.
BIRD-F executive director Dr. Eitan Yudilevich said, "The BIRD teams in both Israel and the US have a proven track record in finding opportunities and public relations. We devote a large part of our time to visiting companies in the Israel and the US. I am a strong believer in showing a presence on the ground."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 19, 2007
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