May 21st, 2008
Rehovot, Israel – May 21, 2008 – Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) reports financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2008.
"Evogene continues to demonstrate accelerating progress towards its goal of being the leading provider of improved plants for the ag-biotech and biofuel industries under milestone and revenue sharing agreements,” stated Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO. ”Evogene discovered genes are now being introduced into four major food crops: Corn, Rice, Soybean and Canola through collaborations with leading international seed companies, such as: Bayer CropScience, DuPont/Pioneer, Limagrain and Monsanto, and during the past quarter we announced a collaboration with Viterra, a leading provider of seed varieties in Canada, to develop canola with improved yield and environmental stress tolerance. With current developments in world population and food supplies, dramatic rise in commodities prices and global climate changes, we strongly believe that improving yields under various conditions is a major step towards coping with critical agricultural problems caused by these trends," Mr. Haviv concluded.
Revenues for the first quarter of 2008 were $116,000*, compared to $17,000** for the first quarter of 2007. Operating loss for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.2 million, and the net loss for that quarter was $1.1 million (including financing income of $190,000 due to implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards), or $0.07 per share. Operating loss for the first quarter of 2007 was $738,000, and the net loss for that quarter was $218,000 (including financing income of $494,000 due to implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards), or $0.015 per share.
As of March 31, 2008, Evogene had $9 million in cash, cash equivalents, cash deposits and short-term marketable securities.
*Converted from New Israeli Shekels (NIS) at the exchange rate on March 31, 2008 (3.553 NIS = $1.00) for the convenience of readers.
** Converted from New Israeli Shekels (NIS) at the exchange rate on March 31, 2007 (4.155 NIS = $1.00) for the convenience of readers.
About Evogene
Evogene is a leading developer of improved plants for the ag-biotech and biofuel industries. The Company’s proprietary product development platform combines world leading computational gene discovery technologies, high throughput selection systems and advanced breeding methods. The platform’s computational biology component - the ATHLETE - is based on Compugen's (Nasdaq: CGEN) 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 is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE:EVGN). For additional information, please visit Evogene’s website at www.evogene.com
This press release contains "forward-looking statements." These statements include words like "may," "expects," "believes," “scheduled” and "intends," and they describe opinions about future events. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Evogene Ltd. to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Contact Information
Evogene:
Liat Cinamon
PR & IR Executive
E-mail: cinamonl@evogene.com
Tel: +972-8-931-1933
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