Evogene will utilize advanced breeding methods to improve underlying crop yield for a key branded product
Rehovot, Israel – March 18, 2015 – Evogene Ltd. (NYSE, TASE: EVGN), a leading company for the improvement of crop productivity and economics for the food, feed and biofuel industries, disclosed today its first collaboration agreement with a multinational food company. The focus of the multi-year collaboration is to improve productivity of a key crop underlying one of the consumer company’s leading branded product lines through advanced breeding methods. “As the consumer market becomes increasingly competitive, the industry is displaying increased interest and involvement in assuring the long-term quality, availability and sustainability of the agricultural feedstocks required for its branded products,” said Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO. “This collaboration allows us to venture into this previously untapped segment of consumer goods, where Evogene’s unique capabilities in improving the performance and productivity of underlying crops, can help meet the growing needs of food companies for more sustainable and higher quality feedstock supply.”
The agreement leverages Evogene’s decade-long experience, data base and knowhow for yield improvement and advanced breeding methods. Under the agreement, Evogene will utilize its proprietary computational and plant validation platforms to develop improved pre-breeding varieties of the target crop. Proof of concept validation activities will be conducted in both model plants and the target crop, which represents a new addition to Evogene’s growing crop improvement portfolio. The three year collaboration, signed late last year, entitles Evogene to research and development fees and success based payments.
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About Evogene Ltd.:
Evogene (NYSE, TASE: EVGN) is a leading company for the improvement of crop productivity
and economics for the food, feed and biofuel industries. The Company has strategic collaborations with world-leading agricultural companies to develop improved seed traits in relation to yield and a-biotic stress (such as tolerance to drought), and biotic stress (such as resistance to disease and nematodes), in key crops as corn, soybean, wheat and rice, and is also focused on the research and development of new products for crop protection (such as weed control). In addition, the Company has a wholly-owned subsidiary, Evofuel, developing seeds for second generation feedstock for biodiesel. For more information, please visit www.evogene.com.
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” relating to future events. These statements may be identified by words such as “may”, “expects”, “intends”, “anticipates”, “plans”, “believes”, “scheduled”, “estimates” or words of similar meaning. Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions, describe opinions about future events, involve certain risks and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore, actual future results, performance or achievements of Evogene may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, many of which beyond Evogene’s control, including, without limitation, those risk factors contained in Evogene’s reports filed with the appropriate securities authority. Evogene disclaims any obligation or commitment to update these forward looking statements to reflect future events or developments or changes in expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions.
Contact:
Karen Mazor, Evogene
Director, Public and Investor Relations
T: +972-54-2288 039
karen.mazor@evogene.com