St. Louis, Missouri and Rehovot,
Israel
August 28, 2008
Collaboration focuses on
identifying key genes to help farmers produce more, while
conserving more.
Monsanto Company (NYSE:
MON) and Evogene Ltd.
(TASE: EVGN) have entered into a five-year research and
development collaboration focused on identifying key plant genes
related to yield, environmental stress and fertilizer
utilization. The agreement is intended to enhance research
efforts to discover and deliver novel, yield-enhancing
technologies at a time of increasing demand for grain globally.
"We have been very impressed with Evogene's discovery
capabilities, particularly their computer-based, predictive
biology efforts," said Robb Fraley, Monsanto's Chief Technology
Officer. "We look forward to building upon our strong
relationship with Evogene to deliver products to farmers'
fields that help meet the needs for increased food, fiber and
energy while protecting the environment."
"In view of Monsanto's leading position in the seed business and
its history of delivering innovative products to farmers, we
look forward to this expansion of our gene discovery
collaboration," said Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and
CEO. "The collaboration reflects the companies'
shared vision of delivering value to farmers through the
development of yield-enhanced crops."
Under the terms of this collaboration:
- Evogene will provide
Monsanto with candidate genes discovered by Evogene's
computational platform that are predicted to improve yield,
fertilizer utilization and a plant's reaction to
environmental stress. The genes will be validated in model
plants.
- The collaboration will
provide Monsanto access to new genes strengthening its
entire gene discovery program. Monsanto will receive
exclusive licensing rights to such genes in a number of
crops, including corn, soybean, canola and cotton.
- Monsanto will evaluate the
licensed genes in its research and development pipeline.
Products that emerge from the joint development will be
commercialized by Monsanto through its branded and licensed
businesses.
- Evogene expects to receive
approximately $35 million over the research term of the
collaboration in the form of an upfront payment and annual
research payments, in consideration for the performance of
the research.
- Evogene is also entitled
to development milestone and royalty payments based on sales
of any resulting products.
Monsanto believes this new
collaboration will help support its commitment to double yields
in its core crops by 2030 and strengthen its ongoing work with
Evogene. In September of 2007, the two companies announced a
collaboration to improve nitrogen use efficiency in corn,
soybeans, canola and cotton.
In a separate agreement, Monsanto has purchased an $18 million
(USD) equity stake in Evogene and has agreed to purchase an
additional $12 million in the future, subject to certain Evogene
diligence requirements.
Martin Gerstel, Chairman of Evogene, stated, "Having the world's
leading agriculture company as a major collaborator moving
forward is clearly a transforming event in the history of our
company, and we welcome Monsanto as a shareholder. Furthermore,
with this new financial commitment, we are now convinced that
Evogene has the resources required to aggressively pursue our
two primary areas of interest -- improved plants for agriculture
and novel feedstocks for biofuels."
Evogene is a leading developer of improved plants for the
ag-biotech and biofuel industries. The company's proprietary
product development platform combines state of the art
computational gene discovery technologies, plant and field
validation capabilities and unique selection systems. The
platform's computational biology component -- the ATHLETE -- is
based on Compugen's in-silico predictive discovery capabilities.
Evogene's current programs focus on yield under normal and
various environmental stress conditions (such as drought),
fertilizer utilization and the improvement of plants
specifically for biofuel uses. Evogene has collaboration and
licensing agreements with world leading companies in the
ag-biotech and alternative energy industries. Evogene's
headquarters are in Rehovot, Israel, and its stock is traded on
the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: EVGN). For additional
information, please visit Evogene's website at
http://www.evogene.com/.
Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of
technology-based solutions and agricultural products that
improve farm productivity and food quality.
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