ViAqua Therapeutics featured in Calcalist

God Willing, He Will Cure Cancer, and Shrimp

By Yoghev Karmel, Calcalist (14 January 2020)

At 43, Technion researcher Avi Schroeder is a phenomenon with four startups under his belt… 

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The connection between Schroeder and shrimp was accidental, the result of his specialization in drug delivery methods. Six years ago, he gave a lecture at Israeli pharmaceutical company Protalix BioTherapeutics, where he met molecular biologist Shai Ufaz, then a Protalix employee and today a business partner and the CEO of their joint company ViAqua Therapeutics Ltd.

A week after the Protalix lecture, the scientists met. Ufaz and another eventual ViAqua co-founder, marine biologist Shai Einbinder, told Schroeder about the problem. There was a bit of squirming and skirting around the issue before they dared say the product they wanted to develop was for shrimp, Schroeder recalled. In 2014, they banded together to form the company…

ViAqua’s product is currently in the process of receiving regulatory approval in 11 countries, and if all goes well, it will hit the market within the next 12 months. The company, which forecasts revenues of 5 million euros for the first year, has recently signed an exclusivity agreement with Nutreco, one of the industry’s leading companies for animal nutrition and aquafeed. Nutreco NV also became a partner in ViAqua.

Read the full article on Calcalist.