Marathon Venture Capital Fund (TASE: MARA) has followed Dr. Philip Frost in selling shares in Protalix Biotherapeutics Inc. (AMEX:PLX), which is developing a biological treatment for Gaucher's disease.
Frost, a VP at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA), recently sold Protalix shares, reducing his stake to about 10%. In the past few days, Marathon sold Protalix shares, reducing its stake to 5.1 million shares, amounting to 6.7% of company, currently worth about $38.9 million.
Before the present sale, Marathon owned 7.3% of Protalix, and two months ago, it owned 8.7%. Marathon will report a capital gain of NIS 11.1 million on the latest sale, on top of the gain from the previous sales.
On Tuesday, Protalix announced that it obtained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) orphan drug status for its Gaucher's disease treatment. Protalix's share closed at $7.58 on the American Stock Exchange yesterday, giving a market cap of $579 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 10, 2009
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