Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) is set to sell Oncotest, which provides genetic testing services for adapting cancer treatment, to Israeli company Rhenium, sources inform "Globes." Payment for Teva's stake in the company is believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
Oncotest, founded in 1998 by CEO Dr. Lior Soussan-Gutman, markets laboratory tests in Israel from all over the world in order to map malignant tumors and adjust treatments and clinical trials specifically to the patient's tumor. Teva owns 100% of Oncotest, and will sell the entire company to Rhenium, but the terms of the deal state that Soussan-Gutman will continue as CEO.
Rhenium, founded and managed by Dror Israeli, is one of the leading companies in Israel in marketing equipment for laboratory tests to private laboratories, health funds, and hospitals. The company was founded in 1991 and operates from Modi'in. In 2015, Shamrock Israel Growth Fund, the Disney family's investment fund in Israel, invested tens of millions of shekels in Rhenium for 30% of the company.
Oncotest has been a pioneer in genetic testing for cancer in Israel. The company grew with the development of this niche. When the human genome was mapped and the limitations of mapping for treating patients were realized, the need emerged for genomic testing of the tumor itself. Human genome tests became less expensive, and the field took a major step forward.
Oncotest initially marketed a number of tests, one of which was Oncotype DX. This test detects whether a breast cancer patient needs chemotherapy, or can make do with hormone therapy, thereby saving the cost of chemotherapy for 30% of breast cancer patients, for whom the treatment was recommended without any test.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 1, 2019
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