Eli Hurvitz and the creation of Teva Pharmaceuticals: An Israeli Biography
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41 The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has 120 members who are elected on a party basis by periodic popular elections.
42 In 1980, the population of the United States totaled more than 226 million people out of a total world population of 4.5 billion.
43 US Ruling for Patented Products. This ruling concerned legal action taken by Roche, the pharmaceutical company that manufactured and sold the patent-protected active ingredient Dalmane, against Bolar, a generic drug manufacturer that made experimental use of Dalmane prior to the patent’s expiration so that it could obtain FDA approval of a generic form of the substance in the future. According to Bolar, the manner in which it used Dalmane constituted “experimental use” and therefore was not an infringement under current patent law. The court of appeals rejected this claim, ruling out the “experimental use” exception due to its underlying business purpose (the intention to sell the generic product in competition with Roche’s product after its patent expired). However, the court also stated that, in this case, policy questions regarding what constituted permissible experimental use should be decided by legislators, not the courts. Soon after this ruling, the US Congress enacted legislation authorizing the use of patented products in experiments for the purpose of obtaining FDA approval.
44 Bank Leumi Le-Israel started out as the Anglo-Palestine Company, which was established in 1902 by the Jewish Colonial Trust, the financial institution of the Zionist Organization. The bank’s first branch opened in Jaffa on August 2, 1903. The Ottoman regional governor immediately visited it to demand, unsuccessfully, that it close because it opened without a permit. Instead, additional branches subsequently opened in Jerusalem, Beirut, Haifa, Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, and Gaza. One of the bank’s first acts of business was to provide guarantees for the Ahuzat Bayit Association, facilitating the establishment of Jaffa’s first Jewish neighborhood, which later evolved into the city of Tel Aviv. The bank continued to develop safely and cautiously, establishing a diverse system of agricultural credit associations and playing an important role in the establishment of industry and the building industry in the Land of Israel. In 1912, Eliezer Siegfried Hoofien was appointed its deputy manager; he would become a major figure in the history of the bank and of the Israeli economy (until his death in 1957). On January 1, 1925, Hoofien began managing the bank on his own. There were no economic enterprises in Palestine in which the bank, which in the 1930s came to be known as the Anglo-Palestine Bank, was not involved. One of its major projects was the construction of the port of Tel Aviv. Another was printing Israel’s first banknotes, a task with which the bank was charged by the leadership of the organized Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine as it prepared for statehood. The bank printed the bills, which became legal currency on August 18, 1948, in the United States and at the same time printed bills in Tel Aviv in the case of emergency. After statehood, it was decided that the fact that the bank was still registered in London, making it a British entity, was not fitting for the central bank of Israel. Therefore a company named Bank Leumi Le-Israel (Israel National Bank) was established in Tel Aviv in 1950 and on May 1, 1951, was transferred all the assets and obligations of the bank that had been founded in London in 1902. The second series of banknotes bear the bank’s present name. The establishment of the Bank of Israel in 1954 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Bank Leumi, which then reverted to the realm of normal banking activity and became one of the leading banks in the country.
45 Charles Bronfman (born in 1931) is a Canadian tycoon and philanthropist. The Bronfman family acquired its wealth in the alcoholic beverage industry through the Seagram Company, which it owns. Bronfman is still involved in the family business.
46 Kiryat Shemona. Located just a few kilometers from the Lebanese border, Kiryat Shemona is the northernmost city in Israel. In the past, Lebanese and Palestinian terrorist groups based in Lebanon regularly fired missiles at the town.
47 A. Miller, S. Slagle, M. Weitzman, H. Crystal, E. Drexler, M. Keilson, A. Merriam, S. Wassertheil-Smoller, V. Spada, W. Weiss, R. Arnon, I. Jacobsohn, D. Teitelbaum, and M. Sela, “A Pilot Trial of Cop-1 in Exacerbating-remitting Multiple Sclerosis,” The New England Journal of Medicine (August 13, 1987).
48 The Investigations Department of the Israeli Tax Authority is part of the Israeli Finance Ministry and is empowered to investigate assessees and to pass on its recommendations to the State Attorney’s Office in the Israeli Justice Ministry. The State Attorney then has the authority to decide whether to initiate legal proceedings against assessees in the Israeli court system.
49 The State Attorney’s Office in Israel is based in the legal department of the Israeli Justice Ministry. Its duties include gathering evidence in investigations of defendants accused of criminal offenses against the state, writing indictments when necessary, and conducting the prosecution when cases come to trial.
50 The courts in Israel are based on the three-tiered British system: magistrate courts, district courts, and the Supreme Court. The first two differ in terms of the severity of the cases they consider. Magistrate courts serve as a first instance and district courts serve not only as a first instance but also as a second instance, that is, as a court of appeal for magistrate court rulings. The Supreme Court serves as the country’s highest judicial instance, hearing appeals of district court rulings and serving as a high court dealing with matters of justice (High Court of Justice).
51 Herzliya Conference. This annual conference, which the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya organizes, brings together Israel’s political and security elite. As such, it serves as an important stage for the articulation of national policy by many of the country’s prominent leaders, including its president and prime minister, the IDF chief of General Staff, and leading contenders for high political office.