The "Biotech Israel 2005" conference will open on Tuesday at the David Intercontinental Hotel

Minister of Science and Technology Ehud Olmert will open the conference and meet with representatives from the foreign delegations * The Minister of Science and Technology of Cyprus and the Minister of Science of Luxembourg will participate in the conference * The number of foreigners participating in the conference has doubled compared to last year

Hundreds of senior officials from Israel and abroad will participate in the "Biotech Israel 2005" conference and exhibition, which will open on Tuesday at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv. The event is taking place for the fourth year in a row. Among the prominent visitors, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism of Cyprus, George Lillix, and the Minister of Science of Luxembourg; Delegations of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world - Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and Merck; First-rate venture capital investors in the global life sciences industry, including Steven Brill of Brill & Co., Richard Rimer - Senior Partner at Index Ventures, William Robbins of Convergent Ventures and Dr. Vidyasgar of the Indian sweeper. The consortium of European biotechnology incubators NATIBS will meet for the first time in Israel as part of the conference, as a guest of the Red Biomed incubator, and will help initiate collaborations between projects in the various countries for the purpose of submitting joint applications for EU funding.
Aharon Schwartz, chairman of the Israel Biotech Conference 2005, said that "this year's conference is a sign of looking forward to the future of the biotechnology industry. The best researchers and academics in the world will present their vision for future developments in various fields of science, medicine and equipment. In addition, a glimpse of future developments will be possible, through presentations of start-up companies with potential."
The number of guests coming from abroad to the conference doubled this year, as did the number of foreign exhibitors at the exhibition. The significant participation of foreigners in the event stems from the security calm in the region, from the global economic recovery and from the interest in the Israeli life sciences industry, says Moshe Lilos, director of Biotech Israel 2005.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ehud Olmert will open the conference on Tuesday morning, and will hold meetings with representatives from the various delegations that came to the event. This year, organized delegations from a large number of countries arrive for the first time, the result of the work of the economic annexes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs around the world. The largest delegations come from the USA (80 guests), Italy (40 guests) and France (30 guests). Chief Scientist, Dr. Eli Ofer, will open the lunch panel.

This year "Biotech 2005" will focus on four main diseases: respiratory diseases, diseases of the central nervous system, metabolic irregularities and cancer, and will offer lectures by key speakers from academia, research and industry, from Israel and the world, including: Steven Baril, president of the Baril company, Prof. Aharon Chechenover, Nobel Prize winner, Fred Frank, Vice President of Lehman Brothers, and other leading academics, researchers, CEOs and presidents of companies.

Also, this year the medical equipment companies were invited to participate in the conference and exhibition for the first time. About 100 exhibitors, about a quarter of which are foreign exhibitors, will present products and services at the exhibition on topics related to drugs, vaccines, genetic therapies, computerized drug discovery, bioinformatics, nanotechnology and bioelectronics, development of new products and new technologies, laboratory equipment and medical devices.