News Briefs

Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva has been given the go-ahead to market its over-the-counter “morning after” pill, Plan B One Step. The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the pill, which will be sold without a prescription to girls under 17.

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American VC Canaan Partners is setting up a fund for investing in Israeli startups. Calcalist reports that funds for the $60 million fund will be raised over the next few months. Canaan excutives, including Israeli Izhar Shay, are meeting with potential Israeli investors.

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Israeli startup Cortica, which visually indexes the web, has raised $6.4 million in a Series B financing round. The round was led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from Mail.ru Group and other angel investors.

This brings the company’s total funding to $18 million. Cortica’s technology simulates the brain’s neuro-circuits in order to recognize patterns and enable computers to understand images with the highest degree of accuracy.

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Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is considering an investment in Israeli incubator TheTime. Globes reports that Abramovih, currently in Israel for President Peres’ 90th birthday, has held a meeting at TheTime, but an agreement has not yet been reached.

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Israeli 3D printing giant Stratasys is strengthening its foothold of the 3D printing industry with a major acquisition. The company has bought American MakerBot, which manufactures desktop 3D printing. Startasys will pay $403 million in advance and up to $201 million in additional payments.

In late 2012, the then-American company merged with Israeli company Objet in a $1.4 billion deal.

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ScaleIO, an Israeli startup which is a world-leader in enterprise data and elastic converged storage, has been acquired by enterprise data giant, EMC.

Israeli technology blog Geektime reports that EMC paid $200-300 million for Scale IO.

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Sapiens International, an Israeli global provider of software solutions for the financial services industry, has signed a major deal in the US. The company announced that a leading financial institution in the US has selected Sapiens DECISION, a business decision management system, as a key component to support their operations.

Though the name of the client and the sume of the deal were not disclosed, it is estimated to be NIS 20 million (approx. $5.6 million).

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Israeli pharmaceutical company Protalix Biotherapeutics Inc. has announced today that it has signed an agreement with Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), an arm of Brazil’s health ministry, to supply its Gaucher treatment Uplyso.

The seven-year agreement is worth approx. $40 million a year, totaling at $280 million.

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Telecommunication giant Cisco has announced that it has opened an innovation center in Israel to develop and deploy a radio network topology for handling the surge in demand for mobile Internet services. Cisco is collaborating with Pelephone Communications Ltd., an Israeli telecom service provider, to test on its live production network the world’s first self-optimizing heterogeneous configuration that combines small-cell, Wi-Fi and macro technologies.

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The Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation, approved approx. $11 million in funding for 14 new projects between Israeli and American companies.

The BIRD Foundation promotes collaboration between Israeli and American companies in various technological fields for the purpose of joint product development. In addition to providing conditional grants of up to $1 million for approved projects, the Foundation assists by working with companies to identify potential strategic partners and facilitate introductions.

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Israeli companies Lucidlogix and CellGuide have merged into one company and raised $3.9 million. Lucidlogix develops GPU virtualization software and CellGuide develops location and navigation solutions.

The companies will continue their joint operations under the name Lucidlogix.

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Israeli generic pharmaceutical giant Teva has announced that it has entered into agreement to acquire American pharmaceutical and drug delivery company MicroDose Therapeutx. According to the agreement, Teva will pay $40 million at closing and up to an additional $125 million in milestone payments.

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Israeli startup Personetics, which offers a predictive virtual assistant solution designed specifically for banking, has raised $11.5 million in a series B financing round. Calcalist reports that the round was led by American VC Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Carmel Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

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Ben Gurion University professor David Newman is among the more than 1,000 people being presented an award by Queen Elizabeth as part of her Birthday Honours list, Buckingham Palace announced on Saturday.

Newman will receive an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his promotion of the academic partnership between Britain and Israel. He has been a leading advocate of the academic partnership between the countries, and a key campaigner against the British academic boycott of Israel.

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Russian anti-virus software maker Kaspersky Lab plans to open its first office in Israel, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday according to Reuters. “For an oil company it would be a very good idea to have an office in Siberia or Russia. Being a cyber-security company, it’s a very good idea to have an office in Israel,” the company’s CEO and co-founder Eugene Kaspersky said.

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