IDAD - More confirmation of the new CEO Yoram Drucker listed now on Nevada SOS. Filings and news will now hit at any time.
Yoram's previous R/M play BCLI now on the Nasdaq.
Started out exactly like IDAD on the OTC -
Was $3.20 at the time the article was written and then rose to over $53 almost immediately after this article was written.
"We can achieve value of hundreds of millions of dollars"
23 Mar, 2005 16:29
Gitit Pincas
Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics is developing bone marrow stem cells taken from patients themselves to treat Parkinson's and other neurological diseases.
Quite a few biotechnology companies have headed overseas, where they've succeeded in raising money to finance their activities when venture capital funds declined to do so. Take for instance, Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Ltd. (BCLI.OB), which is traded over the counter at a market cap of $70 million.
Stem cell therapeutics is a hot research field, and Brainstorm hopes to ride this wave, even though it has not yet begun clinical trials, and still has a long way to go to even begin preclinical testing. It will only begin tests of monkeys next year, and clinical trials on humans a year after that.
Brainstorm aims to develop stem cell therapies for Parkinson's and other neurological diseases. The company's therapy is based on technology to differentiate bone marrow cells into neural-like cells that will produce the missing chemicals in patients with early-stage Parkinson's.
Meanwhile, Brainstorm has conducted tests on mice and lab rats, artificially destroying neurological cells to induce Parkinson's, which is expressed in these animals by walking around in circles. Brainstorm plans to take bone marrow cells, differentiate them into neurological cells, which are then surgically implanted, so that the body will use bone marrow to create spare parts. As mentioned above, clinical trials will only begin in 2007, after tests on monkeys are completed.
Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics president and CEO Dr. Yaffa Beck has over 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry and business development. She co-founded D-Pharm, where she was COO. Later, she founded and ran VentuRx Holdings, a start-up business development company that looked for angel investors. She has also been VP R&D at Orgenics Ltd., director of scientific development at Savient Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: SVNT), and CEO of Collguard Biopharmaceutics Ltd..
Until Brainstorm's new offices in Kiryat Arie are ready (across the street from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.'s (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) plant, Beck notes proudly), it rents a suite of rooms at Collguard in Petah Tikva. While its offices are under construction, Brainstorm is also building its website, four months after going public.
Beck has a Ph.D. in molecular biology and microbiology from the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "After finishing my doctorate, it was clear to me that I would not stay in my original research field, but that I would move to biotechnology, which was a new industry in the 1980s," says Beck. "That's how I arrived at Savient. But I left it in the early 1990s because I was seeking new challenges, which I could not find there. Orgenics was a private company that planned to hold an IPO in 1994. I served as director of business development there, so I made a major contribution to the issue. in the end, it was clear that that was a tough time to hold an issue, and Orgenics did not go public, but I was exposed to the capital market for the first time."
Beck later hoped to take another company she founded, D-Pharm, to Wall Street. "The company was built in the classic manner, from the incubator stage to a company that raised $55 million and was growing nicely. But we missed the window of opportunity to hold an IPO in early 2000. At that point, I decided to leave the company, because I saw myself as a start-up entrepreneur. D-Pharm had a CEO, and I wanted to be my own boss. I had fulfilled my contribution to the company." Beck still owns a fully diluted 4% stake in D-Pharm.
Before considering merging Brainstorm Cell with a stock market shell, Beck tried a different model: raising a lot of money - about $20 million - round a group of good managers, and bringing into the company different stem cell technologies. "It didn’t happen," relates Beck. "I then realized that it's very hard to obtain investment. I had to think differently and reach a different kind of investor. Investment by venture capital funds and angels is not a good model for this field. They want a quick exit, which is legitimate, but very hard to do. They don’t have the time to wait until animal experimentation is completed, not to mention clinical trials. Today, a biotechnology company wanting to hold an issue must have reached the clinical trials stage."
In early 2004, Beck met a group of investors headed by Yoram Drucker, now Brainstorm COO. "They got a license from RAMOT - University Authority for Applied Research & Industrial Development Ltd. for research carried out by Prof. Eldad Melamed, the head of Laboratory of Neurosciences, and Dr. Daniel Offen, an expert in cell biology, both at Tel Aviv University Felsenstein Medical Research Center (FMRC), Beilinson Campus, Petah Tikva. Melamed also serves on the science committee at Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) for Parkinson's Research. Melamed and Offen both teach at Tel Aviv University. Their research partner is Yosef Levy, who developed the system. He will soon complete his doctorate, after which he will join Brainstorm."
The technology is called "NurOwn". Brainstorm Cell will initially focus on treatment for Parkinson's. Four million people worldwide, including 1.5 million in the US, are believed to suffer from Parkinson's. Treatments for the disease are estimated at $4 billion a year, and Beck says that current treatments fail to meet patients' needs.
In November 2004, Brainstorm found a suitable stock market shell, Golden Hand Resources, which immediately changed its name and joined Beck. Brainstorm Cell recently raised $1.5 million.
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