Rehovot, Israel and Adel, Iowa, USA
September 4, 2007
Evogene Ltd (TASE: EVGN) and Midwest Oilseeds, Inc. announced the signature of a licensing agreement for plant transformation technologies. Through the agreement, Evogene shall receive access to Midwest Oilseeds' advanced gene transformation technologies applicable for leading commercial crops such as corn, soybean and canola.
Evogene uses a proprietary computational gene discovery platform to discover key genes related to agricultural traits and validates them through model and target plants. Transformation is the process of inserting the genes into the genome of plants to create plants expressing the desired trait. The transformation technology licensed-in intends to allow Evogene to more efficiently validate its candidate genes and further advance in the trait development pipeline. Evogene’s pipeline includes groups of genes targeted at improving agricultural traits such as: yield, yield stability via tolerance to abiotic stress (mainly drought and salinity), nitrogen use efficiency, enhancement of cotton fiber quality and improved oil yield for biodiesel production.
Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO stated: “We are pleased to add this advanced transformation technology to our product development platform and expect it to allow us better flexibility and efficiency through the development pipeline."
Joseph Saluri, Vice-President for Midwest Oilseeds stated: “The Aerosol Beam Injector technology is a great tool for the advancement of biotechnology and traits. We are confident that this technology will assist Evogene in bringing its new traits to the marketplace.”
Evogene’s mission is to be a world leader in delivering improved plant traits to the agro-biotechnology and biofuel industries through the use of a continuously improving proprietary platform that combines state-of-the-art computational genomics, molecular biology and advanced breeding methods. Evogene’s current product development portfolio includes such traits as: abiotic stress tolerance and yield, improving nitrogen use efficiency, enhancement of cotton fiber quality, increasing oil yield for the biodiesel industry and plant manufacturing of therapeutic proteins. Evogene was founded in 2002 as a spin-off of the agro-biotechnology division of Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN). Evogene’s core in-silico technology, the ATHLETE, is based on Compugen’s proprietary LEADS computational platform. Evogene completed an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in June 2007.
Midwest Oilseeds, Inc. is focused on delivering the highest-yielding soybean germplasm in the seed industry. As the soybean genetics supplier of first choice to the seed industry, Midwest Oilseeds supplies a substantial portion of the soybean genetics planted in the United States today. Midwest Oilseeds’ world-class soybean research and testing system includes operations throughout the Midwestern United States, as well as in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina.
Stine Biotechnology, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Midwest Oilseeds, Inc., has been granted a United States patent on a proprietary transformation technology for the introduction of DNA into plant cells. This new transformation system is known as Aerosol Beam Injection.
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