Medical cannabis company Univo Pharmaceuticals announced today that Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Olmert is joining the company as an investor and as a professional consultant.
Sources close to the company told Globes Olmert’s salary would be $10,000 a month. In addition, he will invest NIS 3-2 million and receive options on 3%-4% of the company’s shares, which will vest in full two years after the allotment date. The company said Olmert will “help promote Univo’s business goals both in Israel and globally, and will support the company’s future fundraising efforts.”
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This is the second prime minister to join the cannabis field, after Ehud Barak, chairman of InterCure. Other Israeli politicians include former justice minister Haim Ramon and others.
Univo owns 74% of the Amit Cannabis growth farm and has signed a cooperation agreement with Derech Lechaim farm and is also completing a 750 square meter factory in Ashkelon, which also has an R & D laboratory for cannabis-based products. According to the company, the launch of the plant is expected in a few months.
Univo has an exclusive development agreement with Sanara Ventures’ company Veoli to develop the formulation for a new cannabis inhaler.
Univo is traded in Tel Aviv at a value of NIS 105 million, following a 16% rise in the share, on a high turnover. The founder and CEO Golan Biton, former head of the field in a government ministry holds most of the company’s shares (27%).
The company notes that Olmert’s joining is “a natural development in light of his extensive experience in the field of health.”
The former prime minister serves as chairman of the Public Council for a Healthy Lifestyle, and heads a group that invests in leading medical companies in Israel, and also mentions that Olmert also served as health minister in the early 1990s, explaining that “Olmert will contribute from his experience to the company.”
Olmert has been convicted of accepting 60,000 shekels in bribes in the Hazera affair, part of the Holyland case, and served a prison sentence from the beginning of 2016 until the middle of 2017.
At the beginning of February, the company announced that it had completed a private placement to a group of investors led by Ido Hajaj, the controlling shareholder in the real estate company Hajaj Brothers and the company’s CEO. The investment is NIS 6 million, for which 11.6% of the company is allocated to the investor group.
Ehud Olmert’s spokesperson said “The field of medical cannabis has undergone a real revolution in recent years, accompanied by accelerated research and regulation, in order to alleviate the suffering of patients suffering from serious diseases,” Olmert said. , Which has the potential to place Israel at the forefront of the research and development of Cannabis-based drugs. After examining various proposals from leading Israeli companies to integrate and contribute from my experience and capabilities to developing these companies, I chose Univo. “
