In this interview, he talks about Netanyahu meeting, memories of his homeland and the belief that the two countries will lead the Middle East together. Gali Weinreb "I received dozens of threats to my life," says Iranian-American businessman Amir Heshmatpour about the reactions to a photo posted on social media last month showing him with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two met during the prime minister's visit to Florida, when Heshmatpour was also a guest at President Trump's estate. "People who see my picture with Bibi told me that I must be a Jew or shout at me that I should convert to Judaism. But I'm not Jewish," he tells "Globes."
Heshmatpour is a veteran investor in the US capital market and owner of biomed company NeOnc Technologies Holdings, which develops drugs for brain cancer. The meeting in question was in connection with the company’s entry into Israel to conduct clinical trials here, as part of the company's expansion in the Middle East. "In this region of the world, Israel is the most advanced in biotech. You really understand the field, more than any other country in the region. It makes sense to launch the trials here and in the UAE at the same time, but in Israel it will probably go faster."
Heshmatpour’s connection to Israel began much earlier, as he is married to a Jewish woman and has already visited here several times in the past. About a month ago, he even posted another photo, this time of a meeting in Ashdod with Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar and Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto. "You have a beautiful country, it's vibrant. It's hard to believe how busy Tel Aviv is, more than New York."
Heshmatpour grew up as a Muslim in Iran. "I left at the age of six or seven," he says. "My father was a successful businessman in the northwest of the country. He owned cinemas and cultural institutions, and after the fall of the Shah he left. But then he made a mistake and came back for a visit. He was arrested and tortured for two years. He returned looking as though he had aged by 50 years, and died at only 48. The people of the current regime are simply barbarians, and I will do what I can to bring down this government. My father told me, 'One day it will happen, and you should do anything to help.'"
Should Israel help?
"It's best to let them fall by themselves. This regime is cancer. But once that happens, you will see that the Middle East will improve immediately. The human capital in Iran is the best in the region, as in Israel. After the fall of the regime, you will work together, and together, you will be invincible. I have already hosted Rabbi Pinto and the Mayor of Beverly Hills, who is an Iranian-American Jew, at my home, and I saw the common spark."
A personal interest in the drug
Heshmatpour’s investment focus has been on taking early-stage drug development companies public. His leadership of NeOnc is the first time in many years that he has taken center stage to run a company himself.
The company is traded on Nasdaq at a not-very-high market cap of $194 million, representing a decline of about 40% since its peak shortly after listing in March 2025. But Heshmatpour thinks big. He has already established a branch of the company in the UAE, is targeting the Middle East and North Africa markets, and in addition to clinical trials is examining the possibility of raising capital in Israel and perhaps investing in local companies, if the right opportunities are found. "I'm focused on NeOnc but I'm interested in investments that can add strategic value to NeOnc, especially innovations from leading universities that can change patients' lives."
Heshmatpour took his first company public at the age of 24. In 1993, with an initial capital of $30,000, he founded cellular communications company Metrophone, and just a year later turned it into a publicly traded company through a reverse merger that gave him control and the name. Through mergers and acquisitions, he expanded Metrophone’s operations to $100 million in revenue. He continued to invest in companies and gained a reputation as a wizard in fundraising and financial engineering.
AFH, his holding company, initially specialized in Chinese companies entering the US stock markets. Years later, he moved on to doing this for biomed companies. Since 2003, when he left Metrophone and founded his investment company AFH, he has not directly managed his companies.
But NeOnc was different from the beginning. "I usually do the financial planning in companies where I invest, float them and then exit - after all, the way you get out is more important than the way you came in. I don't usually run the company, but in this case I felt there was a real opportunity to change the brain cancer picture." The sense of mission Heshmatpour feels this time stems from the fact that his wife lost her brother to the disease when he was just six years old. This premature death affected him deeply but things began to happen when a few years ago he met Prof. Thomas Chen of USC. "Chen is both a professor of brain research and a brain surgeon, and I always say that if someone was going to develop an effective and good drug for brain cancer, it would be this man, because he's dedicated his life to this topic."
NeOnc was founded by Chen and is developing, among other things, a drug that is administered through the nose - a new approach that did not exist until now in the field of cancer. One of the major challenges in treating brain diseases today is that when a drug is administered systemically-throughout the entire body-only a small fraction reaches the brain. The blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from contaminants in the bloodstream, also makes it difficult for therapeutic substances to enter. Increasing the dosage to ensure an effective amount reaches the brain can lead to severe side effects throughout the body.
In recent years, the nose has been marked as a possible direct route to the brain. Several companies have developed drugs that pass through it to treat a variety of ailments such as depression, epilepsy, migraine, and opioid overdoses. NeOnc's drug has shown promising results in animal trials and preliminary human trials.
When Heshmatpour met Chen, the technology had already passed one clinical trial, with very promising results in glioblastoma (a common type of brain cancer). At that point, the company had raised about $10 million from a variety of shareholders. Heshmatpour simplified the ownership structure, raised tens of millions of dollars in several rounds, then brought the company to Nasdaq in March last year through a direct listing, and executed several additional funding rounds. To date, the company’s accumulated deficit totals approximately $100 million. At the end of the third quarter of last year, it held $1.5 million in cash; however, following a reported $50 million strategic agreement with Abu Dhabi-based Quazar Investments ($35 million payable immediately and an additional $15 million contingent on a successful trial), the company will have room to breathe as far as cash flow is concerned. Thus began NeOnc's Middle Eastern romance.
Heshmatpour, who joined the board in 2023, was appointed president and CEO last year in parallel with his role as chairman. "Despite my admiration for Chen and doctors in general, I felt that the company needed a manager who was a manager and not a doctor. It's the first time I've been at the forefront, and responsibile for everything that's good, bad or ugly in the company. About 35% of the company belongs to me, my wife, and my three daughters."
A big market in the Middle East
After the success of a Phase I trial, which was intended to demonstrate the safety of the product but according to the company also indicated efficacy, the company began conducting two efficacy trials, administering the drug to patients with various types of brain cancers. It is also developing the drug as a carrier of other materials, because of its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, and is also considering as a Parkinson's therapy, together with the existing drug Levodopa.
Following the agreement with Quazar, NeOnc’s first branch outside the US opened in the UAE. Now the intention is to cover the entire Middle East. This is how Israel also entered the picture.
"In the Emirates, processes take twice as much time, but to their credit, they know exactly what their limitations are versus their advantages. They know they don't have enough manpower to do clinical trials properly, so they've opened a branch of the leading American hospital Cleveland Clinic, and they'll conduct the clinical trials at the level and according to FDA protocol ."
In the Middle East and North Africa, he says, "There's a bigger market than the US in terms of the number of people, although the income is obviously lower. We are currently conducting trials at sixteen university hospitals in the US, but we wanted to expand the geographic area. The idea is that potential partners pay for a drug according to the size of the market it reaches, and although analysts probably value us according to the US market, a potential buyer may also evaluate our presence elsewhere."
"God's hand in this medicine"
The company's market cap is a sensitive matter at the moment, NeOnc having gone down about 40% since going public.
Biomed companies with no income must constantly raise capital to survive. Given the price drop since the IPO and the small funding rounds that you’ve made from time to time - other companies in this situation have not always been able to recover.
"Ninety percent of companies that go public at a clinical trial stage comparable to ours raise less than $50 million in their IPOs, after which most settle at valuations roughly in line with the capital raised. We are traded at a valuation significantly above the amount we raised. In addition, the company has news in the pipeline, and the market has stabilized and responded positively to favorable trial results.
"We are about 50 days away from the results of the Phase I trial (initial safety and efficacy trial) in our early product and about six months from the results of Phase II (efficacy trial) in the leading product, the one intended for treatment via the nose. Usually in a cancer efficacy trial we are only allowed to treat Stage 4 patients, patients who have no other choice and therefore it makes ethical sense to offer them an experimental product.
"The FDA has approved us to offer our product to Stage 3 patients as well, provided that they have been treated with the products available on the market and these have not helped them, or have stopped helping them. This is a positive sign. We are very pleased with the results we have seen so far, including 24 patients in remission. I believe that God's hand is in this medicine."
Are you considering interesting Israeli investors in the company?
"Many of the money people in the United States, and many of the medical people in the United States, are Jews. They are interested in these areas and in investing in us. We are indeed preparing to examine additional fundraising, and I see a lot of interest in Israel as well, so we will probably try to raise capital in this region too."
When your father came to the US, did he bring money with him, or did he have to build up the family fortune from the beginning?
"Everything from ground up, and he succeeded despite what happened to him in Iran and what it did to him. He bought a grocery store and built it into a chain of grocery stores."
The enterprise was successful, and the family even engaged in philanthropy and founded the Hands Pediatric Therapy and Diagnostics organization, which helps special needs children.
"I followed in his footsteps and bought a restaurant. Al I had was this restaurant when my father passed away. I built my wealth afterwards." At the time, Heshmatpour was attending the University of Pennsylvania, but when his father died, he dropped out of school to take care of his family, and then he also started his first company, Metrophone.
After Metrophone, he began capital market investment activity, then a partnership in a company with an investor from UCLA. Heshmatpour served on the board of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, leading him to look at the university's assets. He fell in love with bringing innovations to market, though today he admits that some of the products were a little too early for investment. "Today, I prefer companies that are already at least in the first stage of clinical trials."
Optimistic about Iran
As part of NeOnc's expansion in the Middle East, Heshmatpour met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to talk about conducting clinical trials in Israel.
"Indeed. He is a very smart man and asked us a lot of correct technical questions about the product, which demonstrated understanding. We submitted all the documents for the start of experiments with Prof. Dvora Blumenthal at Ichilov Hospital. She also knows Dr. Chen - it’s a small world in these areas. I believe we'll start in two months."
Is it difficult for biotech companies to conduct clinical trials in Israel at a level where you need the blessing of a prime minister and a minister?
"No, it's not necessary to meet with the prime minister in order to conduct the trial, but cooperation is of course welcome. We didn't just talk about the company or brain cancer, but also about what's happening in Iran."
Iran may now be ending a difficult period, but what can Israel learn from this story?
"Running a country is like running a very large business. If you leave a good business in the hands of bad management, nothing can help you, while a business or country with challenges in the hands of good management can thrive. Iran has been very poorly managed for 50 years, and it has reached an extreme. There is no water, no electricity, the currency has crashed. When I left as a child, you could buy 7 reals for every dollar. Today, it’s 147 million.
"The situation may still be difficult, but I believe that in the future things will improve. The Iranian community in exile includes an entrepreneurial, smart and economically stable public, which will back this change as soon as the scales tip in its favor."
Assuming that the current regime in Iran falls, will the next regime be democratic?
"It's hard to say for sure. Maybe it will be a hybrid government, between democracy and the Shah's heirs."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 19, 2026.
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