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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
Israel's biotechnology industry is relatively new and an
offspring of its American counterpart. Its creation in the late
1960s resulted from the establishment in Israel of subsidiaries of
foreign pharmaceutical companies. The first of these was a
subsidiary formed by Miles Laboratories with the Weizmann Institute
of Technology, called Miles-Yeda. This was followed by the Hebrew
University-Weizmann Institute subsidiary, Ames-Yissum. Over time,
these firms became wholly Israeli-owned entities. Gradually,
foreign venture capitalists began to initiate other independent
biotechnology entities in Israel. As of the early 1980s, Israeli
venture capitalists had begun creating their own science-based
entities.
Many economists call biotechnology a "natural" Israeli
industry. Its primary input has been data from research and
university laboratories. The only other major ingredient has been
American capital to support research and development activity. The
main areas of research in the mid-1980s included genetic
engineering, human and animal diagnostics, agricultural
biofertilization, and aquatic biotechnology.
Data as of December 1988
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