BOL Pharma: What Happened to Israel's Breath of Life

BOL Pharma (Breath of Life International) was the most ambitious company in Israel's early medical cannabis industry. It was backed by a Tel Aviv-listed agricultural group and by the owner of Israel's largest pharmacy chain. It held the European pharmaceutical standard before any listed Israeli rival. In 2019 it asked Toronto investors to value it at a billion dollars. Five years later it had lost about $131 million, cut its staff to 21 and applied to open insolvency proceedings. This profile traces how that happened, using the company's own disclosures and the Israeli financial press.

This profile is general information about a company's history, not investment advice. Figures come from press reports and the filings of BOL's listed shareholder; where sources disagree, both are noted.

What BOL was

BOL was founded in 2010 and built a fully integrated business: its own farm, a factory and a trading house (Cannabis Magazine, 31 March 2024, Hebrew). At its peak in 2021 it employed 125 people. Unlike most of its rivals it was privately held. Its largest outside shareholder was Amir Marketing and Investments in Agriculture, the Tel Aviv-listed farm-supplies group (CTech, 5 September 2019). Globes later reported that Amir held about 35%, and that the main shareholder was Leon Kupler, owner of the Super-Pharm pharmacy chain (Globes, 1 April 2024, Hebrew).

BOL aimed to be a pharmaceutical company rather than a flower grower, and for a while it led on quality certification. It was the first Israeli cannabis company to obtain EU-GMP certification, the standard required to sell finished cannabis medicines in the European Union. The listed company Panaxia, which followed in June 2020, was the second (Calcalist, 10 June 2020, Hebrew). For what these standards require, see our guide to IMC-GAP, IMC-GMP and EU-GMP.

The billion-dollar listing that never happened

BOL's high point came in 2019, at the peak of the Canadian cannabis boom. It filed to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange at a valuation of $1 billion, then cut the target to $830 million. In June 2019 it withdrew the offering, blaming conditions in the Canadian and global cannabis markets. The prospectus claimed the company could bring 850 tonnes of cannabis a year to market, which one source told CTech was more than the world consumed at the time. By September 2019 the main shareholder had ordered cuts, and BOL laid off 20 of its 180 employees (CTech, 5 September 2019). Globes later reported that the valuation had fallen to about $800 million and then to about $225 million before the listing was abandoned (Globes, 1 April 2024, Hebrew).

The listing was meant to fund exports, and exports were the other part of the plan that did not happen on schedule. When exports did begin, volumes stayed small, and industry analysis counts BOL and Panaxia among the very few Israeli companies that shipped anything at all. The wider story is in our guide to Israel's cannabis export industry.

Research credentials

BOL's best-documented scientific achievement was a shipment to the United States. In March 2020 the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine said it had received 98%-pure, THC-free CBD made by BOL. The researchers planned to use it in studies of concussion and mild traumatic brain injury, with human trials planned for early 2021. BOL's chief medical officer, Boaz Hirshberg, described it as the first shipment of a cannabinoid-based active pharmaceutical ingredient to the US. Miami's researchers said they were the first academic centre able to import CBD from a GMP facility. The university described BOL's Israeli plant as a $150 million facility, and named Tamir Gedo as the company's chief executive (University of Miami, 27 March 2020).

That was the pharmaceutical strategy: sell standardised ingredients and products made to drug-industry standards to researchers and regulated markets. The strategy depended on export markets that grew far more slowly than BOL's investment. For the wider research context, see our guide to Israeli cannabis research institutions.

The numbers: growing revenue, heavier losses

BOL lost money in every year for which figures were published. The figures below, in US dollars, come from Globes' reconstruction of its accounts (Globes, 1 April 2024, Hebrew):

Period	Revenue	Net loss
2018	$3.5m	$29m
2019	about $14m	"remained high" (not quantified)
2020	about $22m	"remained high" (not quantified)
2021	$43m	not reported
2022	$32m	$31m
H1 2023	$8m	$10m

By the end of June 2023 BOL had burned through about $131 million in cumulative losses and had negative equity of about $5 million. Amir Marketing's 2022 annual report raised doubt about BOL's ability to continue as a going concern, and Amir recorded a NIS 48 million loss on the holding that year.

The retreat, 2023

BOL's revenue peaked in 2021 at $43 million and fell by a quarter the following year. By September 2023 it had fully exited pharmaceutical production and cultivation, completed the sale of its assets in Portugal and stopped investing in research and development. It lost $5.4 million in the first quarter of 2023 and $4.8 million in the second. Amir Marketing wrote off the rest of its investment, and its chief executive called the write-off "the central event" in Amir's results (Bizportal, 1 September 2023, Hebrew).

BOL gave two reasons for the collapse, and both apply to the whole industry:

• Oversupply. The market was flooded, both by domestic production and by imports. Our guide to Israel's cannabis imports shows how large a share foreign flower now holds.
• No pharmacy chain. Its main competitors owned pharmacies, and BOL did not. In a market where the pharmacy decides what is on the shelf, a producer without its own outlets had to compete on price. This is the gap that survivors such as Seach Medical Group closed by buying pharmacies.

The insolvency filing, 2024

On 31 March 2024, seven BOL group companies applied to open insolvency proceedings. They reported debts of about NIS 26 million to suppliers and NIS 8.6 million to the bank (Cannabis Magazine, 31 March 2024, Hebrew). The application asked the court to stay proceedings against the company, freeze repayment of its debts and appoint a trustee to preserve its assets while it kept trading. By then a restructuring had cut headcount from 106 to 21. The chairman was Dubi Amitai, who also chairs Amir Marketing, and the chief executive was Kfir Avraham. What remained of the business imported premium cannabis from suppliers in Canada and South Africa and sold it to Israeli pharmacies (Globes, 1 April 2024, Hebrew).

Where BOL stands now

BOL no longer produces cannabis. In the Health Ministry's licence register dated 14 September 2026, its cultivation, propagation and manufacturing entries all appear among holders whose licence or quality certificate has been frozen or cancelled (data.gov.il, Hebrew). We have not found a public report of how the insolvency proceedings ended: whether its farm, brands or import contracts were sold, or to whom. This profile will be updated if one appears.

Why BOL's story matters

BOL is the clearest example of the industry's first strategy failing. That strategy was to build pharmaceutical-grade capacity for export and to raise money on Canadian valuations. The model that survived is different. It is smaller and domestic, it uses imports to fill gaps, and it owns the route to the patient through pharmacies. Compare BOL with Panaxia, the other early EU-GMP exporter, which left Israel for Malta. Compare it also with Tikun Olam, the first licensee, which became a brand with no farms. For every failure and sale of the period in one place, see Israel's cannabis shake-out, 2022–2026. The companies still operating are listed in the company directory and our Companies hub.