In a joint effort between BOL Pharma, Perrigo, OurCrowd and the Israel Innovation Authority, Israel's first medical cannabis innovation hub, CaNegev, was launched at an event on Wednesday evening in Yeruham.
During the launch event, the head of the Yeruham Local Council, Tal Ohana, revealed that Yeruham had received approval from the state to establish two cannabis factories in the area in the coming year.
The hub offers two main programs for entrepreneurs, one of which is intended for startups that will receive funding for the company's activities in the first year and professional guidance from the various partners.
The second program – the Entrepreneurship Program – will provide financial support to novice entrepreneurs who will receive a subsistence and rent scholarship in Yeruham, as well as a guidance and mentoring program from leading researchers and from the professional staff at the incubator.
Israel Birnbaum, CEO of CaNegev, said during the event that "We all share the idea of creating something from nothing. We have combined all the necessary factors to establish the leading medical cannabis laboratory in Israel."
"Ben-Gurion, who advocated for the settlement and development of the Negev, once said that "History is not written - history is made," and that is what we are all doing here in the Negev, in Yeruham - [making] history! We have established a tremendous growth engine for medical cannabis entrepreneurs and startups - we have established the CaNegev," he added.
Ohana said that "This is a very exciting day for me. There are a lot of people sitting here who have taught me a lesson in leadership and especially my duty to be an economic entrepreneur."
"When my grandparents came here in the early 1960s, they were assigned agricultural employment, which had been familiar to them for many years in the Sahara deserts," Ohana said. "Only today, their vision becomes a reality."
Ohana listed the hub's accomplishments and expected growth opportunities, saying that "We have succeeded in getting approval for the establishment of two medical cannabis factories, 600 pharmacists from all over the country have completed training in a dedicated academy which we opened, and in addition, we are planning to market agricultural areas and advanced research laboratories this October.
"We will continue to turn every stone in our journey to make the periphery a good place to live. Without quality employment, this will not happen," Ohana said. "I call on the new government to take action to promote the engines of growth here. The Negev is the settlement reserve of the State of Israel for the next 50 years of its life.
"I call on entrepreneurs who have a technological dream in the fields of biotech and pharma to join us at the CaNegev and gain access to all our infrastructure – especially to the pharma industry, which is heavily invested in the incubator," she concluded.
In order for entrepreneurs to be accepted to participate in a project at the incubator, they must first be judged based on the following qualities: degree of innovation, intellectual property, proof of feasibility, need for the product, size of the market, competition, regulation, developers and adaptation to the incubator strategy.