Rob Daniel, MarketWatch: GE makes second buy in Israeli health-care sector this year
August 21, 2012, 2:42 PM–General Electric’s been scanning the Israeli health-care sector for venture-capital opportunities again and has invested in a specialty monitoring firm.
Healthymagination Fund, jointly managed by the Fairfield, Conn., giant’s GE Capital and GE Healthcare units, has put a chunk of Series B dough into Ornim Inc., parent of a Lod, Israel, medical-system developer.
It’s the second Israeli VC funding this year for GE, coming on top of a bunch of deals and other activity last year.
Ornim’s CerOx system, cleared for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, enables clinicians to monitor two critical parameters — blood flow and oxygen levels in brain and muscle tissue — in adults undergoing a variety of medical procedures, GE said in a statement.
More specifically, Ornim’s system is the only one that monitors both factors at the same time with a single device, GE said. And the system is non-invasive, using near infrared spectroscopy combined with ultrasound to make the measurements, GE said.
As a strategic matter, GE said, the deal fits with GE Healthcare’s focus on patient-monitoring solutions.
GE, which employs more than 550 people in Israel and has operated there since 1950, isn’t specifying how much of the $20 million Series B investment in Ornim it put in.
Other partners in the latest investment include the Israeli affiliate of OrbiMed, the New York life-sciences-investment firm and the leader of the funding round; and Agate Medical Investments LP of Tel Aviv…Read More>>
