Sources inform ''Globes'' that Teva chairman Eli Hurvitz’s Pontifax LP has raised $85 million for its second fund. The Pontifax I fund raised $35 million. Hurvitz will manage the Pontifax II fund together with managing partner Tomer Karib and Ran Nussbaum.
Many of the investors in the Pontifax II fund also invested in the Pontifax I fund, including a who’s-who of Israel’s biomedical entrepreneurs, such as former Agis chairman and CEO Moshe (Mori) Arkin, urologist Prof. Moshe Many, Immodar founder Prof. Michael Sela, and BiondVax founder Prof. Ruth Arnon (who developed Teva’s multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone). Pontifax needed just two months to raise the new fund.
Pontifax’s portfolio includes Biomedix Incubator Ltd. (TASE:BMDX), BioMagnesium Systems Ltd., CollPlant Ltd., CritiSense Ltd., Endogun Medical Systems Ltd., NST - NeuroSurvival Technologies Ltd., NVR - NeuroVascular Recovery Ltd., Ovalum Ltd., and Protalix Biotherapeutics Inc. (AMEX:PLX).
In its presentation to investors, Pontifax said that if the value of its portfolio companies was assessed at their market value on the basis of past offers Pontifax has received for them, it would have made a 4.5-fold return on its investments.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 1, 2007
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