News: ISRAEL FRANCE NANOJV - Prof. S. Benita, J. Garnier, S. Augoula, Y. Bornstein, Dominique Bourra : Coopération SHIZIM - GLAIZER
Par IsraelValley Desk
Rubrique: Biotech
Publié le 24 juin 2008 à 11:29
En marge de la 4ème Edition du Salon Européen de la Recherche et de l’Innovation qui s’est tenue à la Porte de Versailles, un projet de coopération entre Shizim (CEO Yossi Bornstein), entreprise israélienne spécialisée en biotech et Glaizer, premier acteur français privé global de l’innovation (représenté par Jean Garnier et Steeve Angoula).
Ce projet portant sur la création d’un Générateur Technologique en Israël à l’horizon 2008 a été orchestré par Dominique Bourra, CEO de Nanojv et Simon Benita, professeur à la faculté de Pharmacie de l’Université Hébraique de Jerusalem.
Article de B.L. Globes (Copyrights) :
Two stars of the biotech research and start-up incubator world in Israel were attending the European Research and Innovation Show in Paris, meeting with a private R&D innovation team, the Glaizer Group,based just outside the French capital.
Prof. Simon Benita from the School of Pharmacy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a start-up veteran, is on an outside consulting mission here. He has brought Yossi Bornstein, CEO of Shizim and a big biotech player, to Glaizer founders Jean Garnier and Steeve Augoula.
The two French guys (actually Augoula is from Gabon) are running research and partnerships on a very cross-disciplinary, non-French R&D business model. They are determined to open their Technology Generator in Israel by the end of 2008.
They will choose where exactly with a little help from the network that a certain Dominique Bourra, head of NanoJV, has been putting together between France and Israel. It includes Benita, the Glaizer co-founders, and Yossi Bornstein, whom he met years ago at a San Francisco high-tech forum. Now at the Paris Show, Bourra is saying little. Each person has a role to play in putting together a partnership and making sure it works.
“Shizim is a research and a service incubator, the only company with a Life Science Accelerator in Israel that can begin with an idea and go through every stage until market in the biotech field,” says Bornstein.
“And Glaizer is the only company in France with a vision to apply basic research across disciplines, such as biotech, nanotech and the environment; for example,” says CEO and co-founder Augoula. “The Technology Generator is revolutionary as far as we are concerned.”
Shizim is already a major player in the international biotech world. Bornstein works with giants such as Bristol Myers and Squibb in the States. Relatively speaking, Glaizer is the newcomer.
“Do I see getting Glaizer in the US market through Shizim and Israel?” asks Augoula . “The answer is yes. And we will go from biotech to other disciplines in Israel.”
“Israel has major knowledge in life sciences, but there is a gap between start-ups and getting to market,” explains Bornstein, looking around the floor of the show. It was not crowded, not yet perhaps.
“The money and capital investment are just not there, or rather they are, but Israel is tiny.”
“France is richer than Israel, and Paris strongly backs basic research,” notes Benita, “We can grow projects together, giving them added value at every stage, taking advantage of each country’s strong points.”
In fact, there are fewer people in all of Israel than there are in the greater Paris metropolitan area.
Glaizer is growing from incubator to generator. Working on drug patents or devices driving the biotech world can take years and years.
Glaizer has incubated a project on a membrane for biomed use and found application in the nautical world. It currently has three start ups under its wings in France, but this is its first step in the international arena.
Bourra says that Glaizer’s multi-disciplinary approach to generating high-tech R&D could make potential French investors nervous. “This is almost unheard of in France,” notes the head of NanoJV, who by now has an impressive number of France-Israel meetings under his belt, both inside and outside the French Jewish community. “But I think this is the R&D business model of the future, and it should attract financing from both sides.”
The gentlemen, or most of them, spend a good part of the weekend together, eating and talking, and the results are positive.
Shizim and Glaizer are initiating a partnership, with Benita as consultant, on the basis of an idea developed in Israel. Put through Glaizer’s Technology Generator R&D business model, the project will find its application in an organic, biological drug product for women.
“This is very concrete,” says Garnier. “The organic product does less harm to the body than the chemical one it will hopefully replace. Next stage, the proto-type and perhaps a start up. And with this project, we hope to set up shop in Israel and employ the TG model there.”
At the same time, Glaizer will take apart the research to see if it can be applied in another field of applications. “Another company would not tear apart the research like that for use elsewhere,” comments Garnier.
Down the road, research will be done in Israel and France for a prototype and a patent, and then clinical tests in Israel for a product. “This is my first project with France in seven years,” says Shizim’s Bornstein, who has about 30 projects ongoing, six of them international. “No, I didn’t find it strange not to work with France over the years,” he comments. “I have always worked more with the US and the UK. But this a good early stage project for Glaizer.”
Everyone sounds happy, including Bourra at NanoJV. “Putting these people together is the fruit of 12 months’ work,” he says. He brought Glaizer to the Jerusalem Business Forum in 2007, and it is still the only foreign company to have participated in the forum. “Glaizer is becoming an insider in Israel,” he says with a knowing smile. “The process is now a two-way mirror for them. And that is cool.”
