News Briefs

IceCure, a biomedical company that develops minimally invasive therapies for women’s health, announced that it successfully removed benign breast cancer tumors from patients in a clinical trial conducted in Kamogowa, Japan. The company’s IceSense3 Cryoablation system is an ultrasound-guided procedure that penetrates the tumor and then removes it with extreme cold, thus replacing the need for surgical excision of the tumors. IceCure is headquartered in Caesarea, Israel.

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The Girls in Tech London group announced their pick of the Top 100 women in tech in Europe. The group elected women from 19 European countries, including Israel, according to their contribution to tech and innovation. The list included four Israelis: Amit Knaani from ooVoo, Gali Ross from Razoss, Moran Bar from VentureGeeks and Orit Hashay, from Brayola. Girls in Tech London is part of the Girls in Tech Network, which was founded in San Francisco in 2007. The group aims to empower women in technology, with local chapters in countries such as China, Greece, France, the US and Chile.

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Teva Pharmaceutical Industries announced positive results for its Treanda drug trial, for the treatment of lymphoma. During the trial, Treanda was given to patients with slow-growing lymphoma (non-Hodgkin lymphoma), in combination with Roche’s Rituxan. Results showed that patients treated with the combined drugs lived three years longer with no progression of their tumors, compared to those taking chemotherapy with Rituxan.

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Virgin founder Richard Branson and Ofra Strauss, Chairperson of Strauss Group, announced that Strauss Water will provide Virgin its purified water solutions, to be labeled Virgin Pure, as an alternative to bottled water in the UK. According to Virgin, currently 20% of UK households choose bottled water as their primary source of drinking water and another 20% use filter jugs. The company stated that there is a market potential of over 10 million British households.

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Shutterfly, an Internet-based personal publishing service, announced that it has acquired Photoccino, a developer of technologies for photo ranking, analysis and organization based in Haifa, Israel. Photoccino’s current employees will join Shutterfly. The company’s technology applies proprietary algorithms to analyze and evaluate the quality and content of photos, ranks them, and automatically creates photo products using the customer’s best images.

 

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RedHill Biopharma, an Israeli biopharmaceutical company announced positive results in a clinical trial with RHB-103, an oral thin-film formulation of Rizatriptan for the treatment of acute migraine. According to the company, the trial, which was conducted in Canada, met its specified endpoints and FDA’s criteria. RedHill focuses primarily on development of late clinical-stage, patent protected, new formulations and combinations of existing drugs. It is developing RHB-103 with its Canadian co-development partner IntelGenx. The company is targeting a segment of the migraine market – namely the family of triptan migraine drugs – estimated at approximately $2 billion in 2011.

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BlazeMeter, provider of web load testing cloud, today announced that their services now include high-volume testing of interactive Facebook applications. According to the company, Facebook developers can instantly test the performance and scalability of complex, rich applications in highly realistic, load-intensive scenarios. BlazeMeter is a self-service testing environment, compatible with open source Apache JMeter, the popular performance testing framework. The company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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Elbit Medical Technologies announced that its subsidiary InSightec has signed a memorandum of understanding with GE Healthcare, which will invest $27.5 million in the company. The agreement follows an investment of $13.5 million that Insightec secured from GE Healthcare in February. The latest investment will be in the form of a loan convertible to shares. Insightec develops MR guided focused ultrasound devices for the treatment of uterine fibroids, tumors and neurological disorders.

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Social network Facebook is considering to acquire the Israeli facial recognition technology company Face.com. According to reports in Israeli media, the deal could range between $80 million and $100 million. Founded in 2007, Face.com offers accurate facial recognition software that could potentially help Facebook users tag their photos easier. To date, Face.com has raised $5.3 million.

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Rosetta Genomics, a developer and provider of microRNA-based molecular diagnostics, announced it has entered into definitive agreements with investors to purchase an aggregate of 570,755 ordinary shares at a price of $11.50 per share in a registered direct offering. Rosetta plans to use the net proceeds from the offering primarily to fund its operations and for other general corporate purposes. Founded in 2000, the company is headquartered in Rehovot, Israel, with labs in Philadelphia.

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Medical device company Medigus announced that it has received FDA marketing clearance for its SRS endoscopic system. The SRS device is intended for minimally-invasive endoluminal treatment of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). GERD is caused by stomach acid or bile frequently flowing back into the esophagus. This irritates the esophagus, causing acid reflux, heartburn and other severe conditions. In addition to the FDA clearance, Medigus already possesses a CE mark for the SRS system. The company is based in Omer, Israel.

 

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IMMUNE Pharmaceuticals, a developer of monoclonal antibodies, and Yeda, the technology transfer company of the Weizmann Institute of Science, announced a broad collaboration to develop antibody therapeutics focusing on the development of new cancer treatments. IMMUNE Pharmaceuticals, an Israel and US based biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development of next generation monoclonal antibodies addressing the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases.

 

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Arava Power Co., an Israeli renewable-energy developer, announced that it has raised $204 million to build eight solar energy fields in Israel’s Negev desert. The company said that the fields will generate a total of 58.5 megawatts of power. Five of Arava’s fields will be built by Siemens Israel, which partly owns the company. Arava, based in Kibbutz Ketura, noted that the construction of the first field will begin in a few months.

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VMware, a provider of virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wanova. The company provides IT departments a cloud-based, centralized and endpoint management recovery solution for desktops. Financial details were undisclosed by the companies. Wanova, a privately held company, is headquartered in Campbell, California, with a development center in Netanya, Israel.

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German pharmaceutical company Merck announced it is investing in Israeli startup company QLight Nanotech, which develops Quantum Dots – semiconductor nanocrystals that display unique optical and electrical properties. Qlight’s nanocrystals are used for solid state lighting (LED) systems, flat panel displays and other optical applications. Financial details were not disclosed, but the company noted that the deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012. QLight Nanotech is a spin-off subsidiary of Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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