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| Opening the Door to U.S. Market Maryland Agency Hopes to Help Five Israeli Firms |
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This article was written by Aaron Leibel of the Washington Jewish Week staff. It was published Thursday, April 22, 2004, and is reprinted courtesy Washington Jewish Week.
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SLP has been producing sensors for sleep disorders, such as apnea, for 12 years and has been distributing them to the American market through a Virginia company.
Now, the firm wants to "present our own face" in the American market, Noam Hadas, president of the Tel Aviv-based life science company, said this week.
Professor Noam Gavriely's ETView company, which has been in business only 3 1/2 months, produces endotracheal tubes equipped with video cameras. The Misgav-based (near Carmiel in the Galilee) company also wants to enter the U.S. market and sell its device to hospitals, emergency medical services, ambulance services and the military, according to Gavriely.
SLP and ETView are two of five representatives of Israeli life science firms — Andante Medical Devices, Chiasma and MGVS are the others — in Baltimore this week for the first stage of a business development program, MarketReach America, created by the Maryland/Israel Development Center, explained Barry Bogage, executive director of the center.
MIDC received a $116,000 grant to run the program for life science companies from the U.S.-Israel Science and Technology Foundation, an alliance between the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor that funds projects to foster scientific, technological and economic cooperation between the United States and Israel. The Maryland center also received a grant for $150,000 to run a similar program for other kinds of Israeli high tech companies later this year.
Cultural problems often pop up when Americans and Israelis try to negotiate deals, said Bogage. For example, he said, although Israelis usually are "creative and great in technology," they are weaker in business skills. Their presentations to potential investors tend to concentrate on the scientific side — with an overabundance of slides.
"Investors want to know how they are going to make money," said Bogage. "You need to know the market and show how your technology solves a problem in the market."
MarketReach America will try to impart those skills to Israeli businesspeople in three stages, the first of which is this week's five-day strategic planning workshop.
Then comes "professional consulting in Israel to research each company's U.S. market entry strategy" in conjunction with the Maryland center's Israeli partner, Trendlines International, Ltd., the MIDC director said.
"Trendlines helps the firms take the vision they acquired here and flesh it out," he said.
Finally, representatives of the firms will return to the United States in the fall, and MIDC "will take them around the country and state to meet marketing partners, investors and customers," he said.
A competitive application process was held to select the participating companies. Criteria included "management depth and financial ability to undertake a U.S. market initiative," Bogage said.
The MIDC wants to help Israeli companies to do business in the United States, Bogage continued, and "we want the Israeli companies to make money and hire people in Israel and also here."
Once the Israeli firm has enough business in the States to warrant opening an American branch, the goal is to convince it to open the office in Maryland, he said. So far, MIDC has helped 20 Israeli companies open branches in the Free State.
Both Hadas and Gavriely had high hopes for the MarketReach America when interviewed on Monday at the beginning of the program.
"We want all the help we can get in establishing our company" in the States, said Hadas.
As added benefit, he also will be talking to entrepreneurs here to try to develop a new kind of inexpensive sleep diagnostic device for use at home instead of in hospitals.
There is a huge market for his products, Hadas said, with an estimated 15 million Americans suffering from the sleep apnea disorder, but only 15 percent have been diagnosed.
Equipping endotracheal tubes with a video camera will save countless lives each year, Gavriely said. The tubes are inserted into the windpipe to help people breathe during emergency medicine procedures, trauma and cardiac arrest.
Incorrectly inserting the tube can result in death or brain damage, he explained, but the video camera allows for accurate insertion.
"We are looking at the U.S, market as a major customer," Gavriely said. "We also are looking at companies in the field of artificial ventilation as potential marketing partners. This program [MarketReach America] is a unique opportunity to open a window onto two targets — customers and partners."
Gavriely said being in Baltimore also will allow him to expose his company to, and get feedback from, "the best trauma center in the world," the University of Maryland Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in that city.
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