Move reinforces the Company’s commitment to further scale its manufacturing capabilities by increasing production capacity, diversifying products and geographic markets, and by maintaining quality assurance while lowering production costs.
Vancouver, British Columbia and Rehovot, Israel–(Newsfile Corp. – April 19, 2023) – BioHarvest Sciences Inc. (CSE: BHSC) (OTCQB: CNVCF) (“BioHarvest” or the “Company”) has hired, effective today, Dr. Ilana Belzer, Ph.D., as its Chief Operating Officer (COO), reporting to CEO Ilan Sobel, marking a significant milestone in the Company’s commitment to driving continued growth and a relentless focus on achieving profitability in the near term.
Dr. Belzer brings extensive leadership experience and technical knowledge to this role. She served from 2015 until today as the COO of CollPlant Biotechnologies, a NASDAQ-listed regenerative and aesthetics medicine company and biotech innovator based in Israel. At Collplant, Dr. Belzer was responsible for the entire company’s operations, including two production facilities, process and infrastructure engineering, supply chain, maintenance, and analytical and quality control. In that capacity, she led and managed agriculture infrastructure for tobacco leaf biomass production, extraction and purification to deliver pharma-grade collagen and the scale up and validation of various collagen based formulations. She implemented significant process improvements, achieving significant business results, including an increase of 270% in production yield as well as the upgrade of the “clean rooms” GMP facility to support aseptic production. On the operation and supply chain sides, she successfully coordinated the entire production plan, streamlined both upstream and downstream processes, built the operations budget and control measures, and was responsible for the fulfillment of all customer orders.
Prior to moving to CollPlant, Dr. Belzer served as COO at BioHarvest Ltd. From 2012 to 2015. As a senior member of the company’s management team, she was responsible for all operations activities including process development, production, packaging, maintenance, supply chain (purchasing, inventory, warehouse, export, fulfillment) and sub-contractors. She oversaw turning the breakthrough technology of Botanical Synthesis into an industrial process.
Prior to her first role at BioHarvest, Dr. Belzer was also Plant Manager at Omrix Ltd. where she was responsible for Operations (manufacturing, supply chain, engineering, maintenance, packaging and QC) and was VP of R&D and Operations at Procognia Ltd., where she led the development of a novel analytical integrated platform composed of a biological assay and interpretation software. She also Developed new applications in the field of Cancer Diagnostics and Stem Cells.
Dr. Belzer received her Ph.D. in 1990 at the Tel Aviv University faculty of Life Sciences, Microbiology and Cell Biology department. She has also received her M.Sc with excellence at the same department in 1985 following a B.Sc in 1983.
“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Belzer back to BioHarvest’s leadership team at a time of critical growth and profitability focus for us,” said BioHarvest CEO Ilan Sobel. “Ilana will lead the charge in multiple dimensions: increasing production capacity in our current Yavneh site and new additional sites, building a multi product supply chain, implementing production cost reduction measures guaranteeing the highest quality, and preparing the company to address pharma-grade manufacturing. We are blessed that she is bringing back to us the specific botanical synthesis production expertise she had developed at BioHarvest, now enhanced with the pharma-grade manufacturing experience she gained at her previous employer.”
Dr. Belzer said, “It is very special for me to have this opportunity to ‘come back home’ to BioHarvest. I am rejoining BioHarvest equipped with the required experience to take the company to the next phase of its growth and expansion. Ten years ago, I oversaw transforming the BioHarvest breakthrough botanical synthesis technology into a solid industrial scalable process that is now being further scaled. I am delighted to see that many of the staff members that I have worked with before are still with the company. I am excited about the vast opportunities that BioHarvest and its platform technology has, both in the Nutraceutical and Pharmaceutical markets, and I look forward to partnering with Ilan and the team to achieve the company’s goals.”
