The year 2022 is a girlThe biomed fever was characterized by falling markets and price pressure, mainly in the field of medical devices against the background of the limited budgets of the hospitals, after the corona virus and in the face of inflation. The companies faced the challenges in different ways, with mixed results.
company Brainsway , which develops a magnetic helmet for the treatment of psychiatric and neurological diseases, suffered in the fourth quarter of 2022, a decrease in revenues, after a period of several years of growth. Revenues were $6 million, a 29% decrease. The decrease was due, among other things, to revenues that the company was unable to collect from a customer who ran into cash flow difficulties, a logical event for the period. For the entire year, the company reported revenues of $27.2 million, a decrease of 8%, which was greatly affected by the performance of the quarter.
It’s a somewhat stammering start for the company’s new CEO, the Israeli Hadar Levy, who is a long-time manager of the company since 2014 and replaced Christopher Van Jocko, who held the position since the beginning of 2020. This is not the only change the company has made this year. The long-time chairman who held the company on his shoulders during the change of CEOs that occurred in a not uncommon manner in the company, was replaced this year by the new chairman Ami Bohm, a partner in the Fimi Fund.
Levy stated several times in the conference call that the company expects growth in 2023 compared to 2022, and hopes to see an operating balance in the fourth quarter of this year (compared to a loss of $8.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022). He also said that the company is successful in marketing and obtaining insurance indemnity for its relatively new product, the Kedsa for the treatment ofOCD. However, in the coming period it is expected to cut expenses in order to hopefully achieve the operational balance, and among other things there will be cuts in the R&D department.
The company’s coffers had 47.9 million dollars at the end of the year. The company’s value is $115 million, after a 79% drop in the share price since the beginning of the year.
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Biomed company reports on Nasdaq: Kamada is getting stronger
in the company Kamada The trend is the opposite. It shows a recovery in revenue in 2022, after the company suffered a decline in 2021. Kamada’s revenues decreased last year, after according to the contract with its commercial partner Takeda, which marketed the company’s leading product, Glacia to treat hereditary emphysema, the production of the product was transferred to Takeda. Kamada began to enjoy only royalties on the product, and no longer shares in the revenues. In 2021, this led to a decrease in its revenues from 133 million dollars to 103. Kamada purchased a series of products that replaced the product that went to Takeda, and regained most of the lost revenue stream – in 2022 it recorded revenue of $129 million. This is a 25% increase compared to 2021.
The place where the damage is still noticeable is the profit line. After years of profitability thanks to the Glacia product sold to Takeda, the transition to the second phase of the contract took a significant bite out of the company’s profitability. The cost of sales of the products sold is higher, the marketing costs are higher, and the company lost 2.3 million dollars, similar to last year, after during the peak years of Galicia it recorded double-digit profitability.
This year the company generated cash, and in its cash register 34 million dollars, almost double than at the end of last year.
Kamada expects revenues of 138-146 million dollars in 2023, which means that it will already pass the peak revenues of the Glacial period. It does not address bottom-line profitability, but expectsEBITDA of 22-26 million dollars.
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Novocure will offer grants to those who will develop its technology in the field of cancer
company Novocure which developed and markets a unique technology in the field of cancer treatment based on electric fields, and is traded on Nasdaq for $6.2 billion, announced a move that is consistent with its position as a large company leading a new technological field. Novocure, together with the American Association for Cancer Research, will give grants to scientists who will research its technology in the laboratory. The grants amount to over 1.5 million dollars over three years.
Electric fields for cancer treatment (TTFields) They were invented by Prof. Yoram Pelati from the Technion. They work by focusing electrical energy in the area of the cancerous tumor, in a way that prevents the cells in that area from dividing, without affecting the rest of the body. Pelti developed the idea in his doctorate, but only after his retirement did he start a company around him, which became one of the biggest successes of the biomed field in Israel, with treatments for brain cancer, a certain type of lung cancer, and more.
The hope is that scientists studying the technology will understand more exactly how it works and thus accelerate the development of upgrades and additions to the company’s existing capabilities.
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The fifth challenge of AION: “molecular glue”
The innovation incubator AION Labs Launches her fifth challenge – molecular glue. AION It is an innovation incubator in which the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Teva, German Merck and AstraZeneca are partners, along with Keren IBF and Amazon cloud services (AWS). The challenges offered by the industrial incubator are selected together with the franchise companies, to reflect the real needs of the market. The winning team is invited to start a company within AIONbased on the chosen idea.
The current challenge is to develop a molecular glue using artificial intelligence. Molecular adhesives, according to the definition of the challenge, are adhesives that connect certain proteins and a protein-degrading factor from a family called E3. By encouraging the connection, the rate of protein degradation can be accelerated. The intention is to do this to the proteins involved in the disease mechanism, and to date no medicinal way has been found to break them down.
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