San Diego, California, USA
December 14, 2010

As Cibus Global continues its development of the first non-transgenic canola crop in North America, the pioneering crop trait development firm today announced a partnership with crop protection product manufacturer Rotam. Under the terms of the collaboration, Rotam will provide herbicides aligned with the value-added canola traits Cibus is developing. This partnership offers farmers a more environmentally friendly, one-pass weed control system.

Cibus has developed protection and performance enhancement traits for canola using its patented Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS™). RTDS is an environmentally safe trait development procedure that avoids the introduction of foreign genetic material into plants by mimicking natural methods in a highly targeted way. RTDS has been recognized by the USDA as a mutagenesis technique, and is therefore not subject to the regulations applied to transgenic (or GM) crops.

The North American market for canola traits covers approximately 16 million acres with an annual trait value of $240 million. This same trait will be marketed in Europe with other seed partners; the European market for oil seed rape traits has a value of 450 million Euros annual revenue on 6.5 million hectares. Cibus has far-reaching plans to develop additional yield and performance enhancement traits in canola, including shatter tolerance, improved bio-energy feed stock attributes and healthier oils.

“This agreement with Rotam provides high quality herbicides for our non-transgenic, value-added canola. We now have a complete product offering and, the requisite distribution channels to bring it to market,” said Keith Walker, President, Cibus Global.

“At Cibus Global, we carefully evaluate each partnership and project with the interests of farmer in mind. The Rotam brand may not be widely known in North America, but it is the foremost crop protection company in China and has a presence around the globe,” said David Voss, Vice President of Commercial Development, Cibus Global. “We selected Rotam as our North American herbicide partner for our soon-to-launch herbicide tolerant canola because Rotam provides fully integrated manufacturing, industry leading technology, high quality standards, registration and technical support for a broad product offering that will appeal to farmers across North America.”

“Our collaboration with Cibus marks a number of firsts, not only the development of RTDS-developed canola for the North American market, but also the debut of Rotam-branded products targeting the Canadian market,” said Thomas Chavez, Rotam country manager. “Rotam CropSciences sells branded finished products into over 60 countries through a network of strategic partnerships, and we are confident that we will exceed the expectations of farmers in Canada. We look forward to working with Cibus.”

Cibus Global develops advantageous crop traits with far-reaching implications in agriculture, alternative energy and product development. Through its proprietary Rapid Trait Development System (RTDSTM), Cibus creates traits in a directed way with more precision than traditional breeding techniques and without the introduction of foreign genetic material. RTDS has proven itself in the laboratory with several different applications, as well as in initial field trials of Cibus’ first commercial crop, canola. Cibus’ products will be brought to market through strategic, crop-specific partnerships.

Rotam is a fast-growing international organization operating in Crop Protection, Turf & Ornamental, Public Health and Veterinary sectors. Excellence and innovation may not be what you first associate with off-patent crop protection chemistry, but that’s exactly what Rotam stands for. State-of –the-art facilities housing our research and development, global registration, manufacturing draw on the highest caliber expertise. With our product development teams pioneering the use of innovative technologies to remove impurities, improve safety and enhance delivery systems. We work on a global platform but offer local crop protection solutions. Rotam has a worldwide presence with direct operations in over 60 countries, with a Corporate Office in Hong Kong, principal manufacturing base in China and operations split into 10 regions.