Israel As a Source of Life Science Innovation
BY ARIELLA P. GOLOMB, MD, JANUARY 3, 2007
Kyphon's pending acquisition of Israeli-based Disc-O-Tech's Assets for $240 million is only a part of the dollar volume of Israeli technology M&A activity in 2006. The Israeli Venture Capital Research Center reported that in 2006, 76 M&A technology deals involving Israeli companies either acquired or merged were valued at $10.6 billion. This is a dramatic increase in dollar volume when compared to recent years. Also in 2006, IPOs on US, European, Asian and Israeli stock exchanges raised $693 million. See charts below.
Chart 1: Capital Raised in Mergers & Acquisitions of Israeli High-Tech Companies
Chart 2: Capital Raised in Initial Public Offerings of Israeli High-Tech Companies
The life sciences play an important role in the attractive Israeli-generated technology market. Biomedical Business & Techonology's feature on the Biomed Israel Conference 2006, reported back in September that Israel's life science industry consists of 630 companies, 51% of which are medical device companies. BB&T also recounted that Dr. Scott Gottlieb, deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs at the FDA named Israel the world's second-leading source of biomedical innovations after the state of California.
