BioHarvest Sciences Inc. has hired, effective April 19, 2023, 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 now 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.