Clal Biotech to invest in heart valve co Pi R Squared

The investment will the first by Clal Biotech through its NIS 225 million medical devices investment fund.

Sources inform ''Globes'' that Clal Biotechnology Industries Ltd. (TASE: CBI) will soon make its first investment through the NIS 225 million medical devices investment fund that it is setting up with Israeli institutional investors. The investment will be several million dollars in Pi R Squared Ltd., which is developing a treatment for calcification of coronary valves, a leading cause of heart attacks.

Pi R Squared was founded in 2009 by Eyal Kolka and Erez Golan. Kolka and Golan previously founded Topspin Medical Inc. (TASE:TOPMD), now a stock market shell, but whose miniature MRI diagnostic device for heart disease is still considered a breakthrough product, although it failed commercially and technically.

Replacement of calcified heart valves is the hottest topic in cardiology today. Two Israeli start-ups, Percutaneous Valve Technologies Ltd. (sold to Edwards LifeSciences) Inc. (NYSE: EW) for $125 million) and Ventor Technologies (which was sold to Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT) for $325 million) operate in this field.

Pi R Squared's technology can correct a calcified heart valve in situ, rather than replacing it. The product is based on a catheter inserted into the heart via an artery and which grabs the valve flaps and mechanically breaks up the calcification. The company has conducted animal trials of the device, and while animals are not considered a successful model for this disease, the product apparently breaks up the calcification without damaging the valves or heart tissue and without causing clots.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 12, 2011

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011

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