Takii & Co., Ltd., Bio Seeds companies and Keygene N.V. announced today the entrance of Takii as shareholder of Keygene via a capital share of 20% in Bio Seeds B.V. Takii is a Japanese company that breeds, produces and sells vegetable and flower varieties. Keygene is a Dutch biotech company based in Wageningen that focuses on the improvement of breeding technologies for seed companies. Takii will become one of the five companies collaborating in the Bio Seeds strategic alliance that owns Keygene and uses its technologies and know-how. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Takii will get entrance to all technologies and results that have been obtained by Keygene over the past years. The company will participate in the joint research projects at Keygene and will use the technologies and research results for the improvement and acceleration of its breeding programs.

Denichi Takii, President of Takii & Co., Ltd. believes that participation in the alliance will benefit the company in many ways: "I am quite positive about the entrance to the alliance. Technologies and research results from cooperative projects will enable us to improve our varieties quicker and more precisely. Partners are all research oriented professional seed companies that focus on the breeding, producing and marketing of vegetable varieties as their core business. Therefore, I am confident that the excellent synergy in the alliance will lead to new results and innovations".

Hans Dons, Managing Director of Bio Seeds B.V., expresses his great enthusiasm about the entrance of Takii to the consortium: "A company with the history and culture of Takii fits very well with those of the current Bio Seeds companies. I am convinced that this will enforce the competitive edge of the companies considerably and will lead to new opportunities in the alliance with Keygene".

"After the entrance of Vilmorin Clause & Cie as a shareholder in 2001, the interest of Takii in Keygene is for us a new sign of the worldwide impact of our technologies and know how in molecular breeding and proves the success of molecular breeding approaches for the development of new, commercially successful vegetable varieties", says Arjen J. van Tunen, CEO of Keygene. "The agreement also provides Keygene with additional resources to generate new and innovative expertise and technologies and strengthens our strategic research portfolio".

Takii & Co., Ltd. is one of the oldest seed companies in the world founded in 1835 and celebrates its 170th anniversary this year. Takii specializes in vegetable and flower seed varieties. About half century ago, Takii developed and started commercializing the hybridization system based on self-incompatibility for breeding and producing Brassica group. Since then, the company has released a lot of new F1 hybrid vegetable varieties. Takii maintains the leading position in tomato, carrot, cabbage, chinese cabbage, radish, onion and many other species for the Japanese and Asian vegetable seed markets. Its flower varieties such as dianthus, pansy, sunflower and zinnia have also been used worldwide. Takii has approximately 100 breeders and researchers and five research stations in Japan.

Keygene N.V. is a leading R&D company with the mission to be the leading company in developing and applying DNA expertise in breeding and diagnostics for the Agro Food Industries. Keygene has developed a strong proprietary technology platform based on AFLP®, a DNA marker technology for genome analysis, transcript profiling and genetic analysis. For diagnostic purposes, SNPWave™, a multiplex SNP detection technology was developed. Keygene exploits its proprietary technologies, databases and know-how through contract research, services and products for applications in the Life Sciences industry and more specifically in innovative breeding applications such as Breeding by Design™. Via Bio Seeds B.V., Keygene has now five shareholders consisting of five major vegetable seed companies that collaborate in the Bio Seeds strategic alliance: De Ruiter Zonen, ENZA Zaden, Rijk Zwaan, Vilmorin Clause & Cie and Takii & Co., Ltd. Keygene has around 100 researchers and staff.