September 22, 2016

Agrinnovation, the agtech investment fund launched by Yissum Research Development Company, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, announced it has agreed to invest in medical cannabis startup, Cannabi-Tech Ltd.

Based on research conducted at the laboratory of Professor Oded Shoseyov with the Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Cannabi-Tech is using proprietary technology to develop the world’s first accurate and affordable automated device that can easily detect, analyze, and sort individual cannabis flowers in a non-destructive manner.

Using Near Infra-Red spectrometry and imaging tools, the device will be able to detect and quantify active compound of the cannabis plant, while also detecting each flower’s unique ‘spectral fingerprint’. The additional sorter will automatically sort the flowers according to a pre-set criteria suitable for mass production.

“Cannabis composition and potency varies drastically between different flowers from the same plant and across different plants within the same strain,” explains Professor Shoseyov, co-founder and CSO of Cannabi-Tech. “As a result, the only way to guarantee cannabis composition and potency is to test each and every flower independently,” adding, “The medical cannabis opportunity cannot materialize in full until doctors do not have 100% confidence that each time they prescribe medical cannabis, it comes in a controlled and standardized condition, with the precise composition of active ingredients matching their patient’s therapeutic needs.”

Once fully developed, this technology has the potential to help the medical marijuana industry in Israel achieve what Israel National News refers to as the “holy grail of medical marijuana,” a standard, purified form of the drug that can be administered in accurate doses.

Agrinnovation

In October 2015 The Yissum Research Development Company announced the formation of Agrinnovation, an agtech fund established with the intent of investing in and advancing agtech developments and startups.

Upon its launch, Agrinnovation announced the closing of its first US$4 million round of financing led by the Victor Smorgon Group of Australia, and including Yissum and the Provident Fund of the Employees of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Within days the round is expected to increase to US$6 million as a group of Chinese-Israeli investors also join the fund.

Managed by Dr. Ido Schechter, Agrinnovation plans to invest in approximately five stand-out early stage agtech projects per year with the goal of developing successful proof-of-concepts that can then be the foundation for startup companies whose concept can be scaled to a level of commercialization.

Israel at the Fore

There is a steady, global progression toward the legalization of medical marijuana, and Israel is positioning itself to be at the forefront of the movement.

The recreational use of marijuana remains illegal in the country, however, attitudes toward its controlled medical application are rather liberal. For the past decade medical marijuana has been prescribed by doctors to approximately 25,000 patients to alleviate symptoms associated with certain conditions such as cancer, epilepsy, degenerative diseases and PTSD.

And although much remains to be accomplished, science is advancing faster in Israel than in other countries due to the government’s allowance of human critical trials.

“With the support of the (health) ministry, which has always had a pioneering attitude to this issue, we have built up expertise in clinical trials and we can share it with companies in the United States and Europe,” said Tamir Gedo, head of BOL Pharma, a company licensed by the Israeli health ministry to grow and distribute medical marijuana.

Israel has identified the nascent potential within the medical marijuana industry for not only its benefit to the human health condition, but also for its ability to create a profitable new investment class, and toward this end, is boosting its marketing of its agronomic and technological expertise in the field.

“We’re not going to miss this opportunity, and seeing what the first investors are putting on the table, we feel that it is going to be very big,” said Saul Kaye, head of iCAN, the first Israeli incubator for cannabis startups.

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Lynda Kiernan