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NewsApril 11, 2007 CollPlant raises $4.5 million CollPlant Ltd., has raised NIS 18.6 million at a company value of NIS 50 million from Docor International Management Ltd., Pontifax Fund and Moshe Arkin. Pontifax was established by Teva chairman Eli Horovitz. Perrigo vice chairman Arkin is an investor in the fund. CollPlant recently completed nearly a three year period in the Biomedix Incubator Ltd. (TASE:BMDX) subsidiary Meytav Technological Enterprises Innovation Center Ltd., in which Pontifax is a major shareholder. In March this year CollPlant won the Technical Incubators Program's 2006 award for excellence. CollPlant is able to produce stable human collagen from plants which may provide the basis for providing replacement tissues for human parts which have degenerated. Its products, still under development will seek US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval later this year. Collagen is currently sourced from animal tissues, cultured human tissue or from live or deceased donors. CollPlant's process involves genetic engineering and the convergence of five different genes into a single plant cell, a difficult task exactly suited for the company's molecular biology and protein engineering expertise. The technology was developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later transferred to a dedicated facility in Rehovot , Israel for further development and commercialization.
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