In the second newsletter since the war broke out in October 2023, we express our hope for a swift end to hostilities and the safe return of all hostages. The ongoing conflict impacts both our personal lives and our work at Yeda. While patent submissions continue as usual, forming new contacts and securing investments remains challenging.

The patent world is continuously evolving. Changes in international intellectual property laws and court rulings over the last two decades challenge the ability to protect inventive concepts, particularly in biotechnology. Despite the challenges, the global demand for patents consistently grows, creating a crowded patent environment.

In recent years, most early R&D for innovative biotech products has taken place in startups and small companies, while mature products are often commercialized by big pharma companies. Inspired by this trend, technology transfer companies have focused their efforts on spinning out companies to develop their technologies. The current economic uncertainty shines a spotlight on the challenges of bringing new technologies to market, and particularly academic spinouts requiring early-stage funding.

Looking back over the past 12 months, we can confidently say that 2022 was a successful year for Yeda. In the course of the past year, we have completed a series of important licensing deals for technologies that have emerged from all campus faculties, many of which have led to the formation of new entities.

In the first half of 2022, Yeda has commercialized technologies from a broad range of disciplines at the Weizmann Institute, by partnering with existing companies as well as newly-established startups.

The first edition of our newsletter is dedicated to some of our key highlights in 2021. The past year was a record year for licensing agreements. In addition, many potential deals were added to our pipeline, and we look forward to seeing many of them materialize in 2022.