Drug development technology wins first place at BizTech 2020
BizTech graduates have raised more than #750 m. in the program's 16 years of operation.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFBizTech 2020 winning LightCode system.(photo credit: TECHNION-ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY)
LightCode, a technology that accelerates drug discovery and was developed by Dr. Gilad Rosenblatt and Dr. Boris Simkhovich, has won first place at BizTech 2020. The announcement was made at the BizTech final event which was held online and attended by Israel's Science and Technology Minister Izhar Shay and UAE representative Shrikant Tucker from the Emirati Innovation Authority.BizTech 2020 operates as part of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center t-hub. It is a program designed to foster entrepreneurs who are developing deep technologies by providing them with professional mentorship. BizTech graduates have raised more than #750 m. in the program's 16 years of operation.The winning project, LightCode identifies the potential of small, molecules to be used in new drugs, accelerating drug discovery. Currently, drug development can take around a decade and an investment of billions of dollars, and approximately 90% of drugs that reach clinical development do not make it to the market. LightTech allows for the combination of speed and accuracy in testing small molecules that can serve as the building blocks of new drugs.BizTech 2020 had a record number of participants this year and a record number of women. Some 28% of participants were women, a number of organizers expect will grow."The BizTEC program is an elite unit in the field of entrepreneurship programs in the world in general and in the Israeli ecosystem in particular,” he said. It is very rare that there are so many successes coming out of a program designed for projects at very early stages," said BizTech program manager, Ohad Yaniv"The Coronavirus crisis has brought scientific research and technology back to the forefront and to the public discourse," said president of the Technion, Prof. Uri Sivan."Crises of the kind we are experiencing now bring with them not only difficulties but also new opportunities and directions. They challenge paradigms and take us all out of our comfort zone; this is the time for creativity and innovation. They say the need is the mother of all invention."Commenting on the event, Shay said, "I was one of the first investors in BizTEC and it is exciting to see the continuity of the program and the successes of its graduates."
