REHOVOT, ISRAEL and PARIS--(Marketwire - March 16, 2010) -
Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) and
Biogemma SAS today announced the signing of a licensing agreement for the
development and commercialization by Biogemma of hybrid corn lines,
displaying improved yield and drought tolerance. The improved corn lines
will incorporate certain Evogene discovered genes which have been jointly
evaluated by the parties through a collaboration initiated in 2006. Under
the newly signed licensing agreement, Biogemma receives worldwide exclusive
commercialization rights to the genes for corn; financial terms of the
agreement were not disclosed.
Pursuant to the earlier 2006 joint research agreement, corn lines
incorporating various Evogene discovered genes were validated by Biogemma
and Evogene in field trials in the USA and Israel during 2008 and 2009.
Pascual Perez, CEO for Biogemma, stated, "We were pleased to see that the
results of Evogene's leads confirmed our interest in Evogene's discovered
genes for our major target crop: maize. We are also very satisfied with the
efficient research collaboration that has been established by the two
companies and which allowed us to rapidly finalize this important Proof of
Concept. Under the newly signed agreement and commercial license, we will
now focus our efforts on developing the improved maize product for the
benefits of our seed company shareholders."
Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO, stated, "Improved plant yield and
drought tolerance are perhaps the most critical needs in today's worldwide
agriculture, and as such are key targets for Evogene's ag-bio trait
program. We therefore are extremely pleased by Biogemma's decision to
continue the validation and further development of our genes in corn and
consider this as a very positive outcome of the parties' joint
collaborative efforts."
About Evogene
Evogene is a world leading developer of improved plant traits for the
agriculture and biofuel industries through the use of plant genomics. The
company's technology platform is based on a unique computational core
technology for gene discovery, the ATHLETE, and high throughput systems for
gene validation. Evogene's development programs focus on the improvement of
high-commercial value plant traits, such as yield, biotic and a-biotic
stresses tolerance, and the improvement of plants specifically for biofuel
uses. Evogene is collaborating with world leading seed companies in order
to introduce its technology into key commercial crops. 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 www.evogene.com.
About Biogemma
Biogemma is a leading biotech company in Europe involved in Genomics
applied to Field crops. Result of the merger of the biotech activity of
three major seed business companies, Vilmorin & Cie (Limagrain Group),
Euralis and RAGT and with the help of two financial institutions
Sofiproteol and Unigrain with the support of the technical agency Arvalis,
the company is developing R&D programs with its partners, in field crops (Corn, Wheat, Sunflower and Rapeseed ), focused on yield improvement, biotic
and abiotic stresses and specialty grain compounds.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements." These statements
include words like "may," "expects," "believes," "scheduled," "potentially"
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.
