Businessperson Ido Hagag, together with other investors, including Chaim Hurvitz, son of late Teva founder Eli Hurvitz and a former Teva executive himself, is increasing his investment in the cannabis field by investing NIS 3 million more in Univo Pharmaceuticals (TASE: UNVO). Hagag initially invested NIS 6 million with partners in Univo's shares and options, and later bought more shares and option in the company on his own for NIS 2 million.
Six months after the government approved exports of cannabis products from Israel, no actual exports are on the horizon. Meanwhile, share prices in the cannabis sector on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) have been plummeting. For example, Univo's share price has dropped 50% since April this year. Cannasure's share price is down over 60% from its peak in February this year and Together is down 78% since April 2018. Medivie Therapeutic' share price is off 77% since March 2018, Whitesmoke's share has lost 57% of its value since February 2018, Ophectra's share price has fallen 30% in the past month, InterCure (headed by Ehud Barak) has lost over 50% of its value since hitting a peak in February 2019, Medical Compression Systems is down 45% since February 2019, and Amir Marketing's share price has fallen 27% since June 2019.
Nishot Strategy and Research founder and CEO and consultant to the Sela Cannabis mutual fund Shiri Eden says, "The Israeli government decided on medical cannabis exports last February, but implementation is still a long way off. There are three hurdles that must still be overcome before Israeli companies can export: exports standards that must be written by the Ministry of Health Medical Cannabis Unit; significant differences between the Israeli IMP-GMP standard and the EU-GMP European standard, which is much stricter than IMP-GMP; and the signing of trade agreement between Israel and the European Union. Israeli processing companies will have to adopt the Israeli standard to the European standard, a process that could take two years."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 23, 2019
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