A strategic investor has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to acquire Israeli company BioProtect, which has developed an implant to protect healthy tissue from radiation damage, for about $200 million in cash. Almeda Ventures (TASE: AMDA), a limited partnership in healthcare investments, which owns 4% of BioProtect, has notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) about the signing of the MoU.
Almeda will record revenue of about $10-12 million from the deal and a capital gain of about $8 million. Following the announcement, Almeda's share price rose 20% yesterday, giving a market cap of NIS 37 million. Almeda recently made a smaller sale of $1.4 million for Clanz Technologies.
A simple but sophisticated idea
BioProtect was founded in 2004 by Prof. Avi Domb of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, today the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Science, and Dr. Adrian Paz and Shaul Shohat, both serial entrepreneurs in the field of medical devices. The company has raised about $36 million to date, from investors including MVM Partners, Korea’s KBI Fund, Peregrine Ventures, TriVentures and Vincent Tchenguiz’s CBG Group.
The entrepreneurs had a simple but sophisticated idea: a small balloon that inflates and degrades inside the body would separate prostate tissue from other healthy tissue during radiation therapy to treat prostate tumors, thus protecting healthy tissue from radiation.
Since then, the company has already spawned a spin-off called OrthoSpace, which uses the same technology to relieve tissue friction to reduce pain for the orthopedic market, and in 2019 the subsidiary was sold to orthopedics corporation Stryker for $110 million immediately and potential for a deal of up to $220 million tied to milestone achievements.
Meanwhile, parent company BioProtect continued to develop its product. About two years after the acquisition, OrthoSpace CEO Itay Barnea, who led the sale, left Stryker and was appointed BioProtect CEO, with the aim of promoting the company in the same way. Only in 2020, after the sale of OrthoSpace, did it raise sufficient funds to conduct a clinical trial at a large number of medical centers to prove the product's effectiveness and obtain FDA approval, which was received at the end of 2023. Since then, the product's effectiveness has been demonstrated in a further trial.
BioProtect has additional products in development, for use in tissue protection in other types of interventional oncology treatments as well as in aesthetic and general surgeries.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 28, 2026.
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