Sun Pharma CEO invests in Israeli company Bio-Light

Bio- Light CEO: company moving forward systematically to create value for a secondary offering.

By GALI WEINREB/ GLOBES
Israel Makov311 (photo credit: Globes)
Israel Makov311
(photo credit: Globes)
Industries Ltd. CEO Dilip Shanghvi will invest $10.5 million in Bio- Light Israeli Life Sciences Investments Ltd. for an 11 percent stake in the company, through his private company MJ Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
Former Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. CEO Israel Makov recently took over Bio-Light and serves as its chairman.
Sun Pharmaceuticals, which has a market cap of $12 billion on the Bombay Stock Exchange, owns 66% of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Shanghvi personally led the takeover of Taro.
Bio-Light will allot 30 million shares to MJ Pharmaceuticals at a company value of NIS 95 million, double the current market cap of NIS 42 million, even after taking the diluting of the shares in the deal. Bio-Light’s share price rose 0.4% by mid-afternoon on Sunday to NIS 0.288.
“This deal was designed so that its terms will be similar to the terms at which the group of investors led by Makov took over the company, weighting the options that this group has to increase its stake, an option which has not yet been exercised,” Bio- Light CEO Suzana Nahum Zilberberg told Globes.
Makov took over Bio-Light in order to create a company that invests in clusters, i.e. non-competing, but collaborating, companies in complementary fields. Bio- Light is developing two clusters: in oncology through its takeover Micromedic Technologies Ltd., which already has a range of cancer diagnostic activities; and the second in ophthalmology, based on Bio-Light subsidiary IOptima Ltd.
We will use the initial investment to finance our deal with Micromedic and to support IOptima, and to create synergetic operations around them,” Nahum Zilberberg said. She added that the company was moving forward systematically to create value for a secondary offering.
“We already realized that we should raise capital gradually, rather than seeking an immediate large investment.”
“Various investors are interested in the company, including Israeli investment institutions, and if someone makes a good offer, we probably won’t object. In the short term, however, we’re not looking for additional investment to what we obtained today,” Nahum Zilberberg said.
“Shanghvi says he wants to participate in the creativity and enterprise.
He won’t hold an official position in the company, but he can definitely help it and advise us. He is a very experienced man in the pharmaceutical industry with a track record of success.”