The contract concerns the major crops, field crops as well as vegetables. Through this agreement, Biogemma, common subsidiary of Limagrain and other seed and agricultural and financial business organizations will be entitled to use the technology. "We wish to apply Cellectis’ technology to develop even more accurate plant breeding tools" insists Michel Debrand, CEO of Biogemma.

"We believe that the applications of our Meganuclease Recombination System will be fundamental in Agriculture, where precise and rational genome engineering are the necessary trends", says Dr. André Choulika, President & CEO of Cellectis, "especially as our technology offers specific advantages over other site-specific systems ". And concludes "We are very pleased with this new deal in the Plant Biotech domain with the European leader of the seed industry".

Limagrain is an independent co-operative group, owned by Farmers, and employing 5,200 people from over 40 different nationalities. Limagrain, with a turnover of 1 billion euro, is the 4th seed business company, with a European lead in Field crops and vegetables. 12% of its turnover is dedicated to Research. Limagrain invests heavily in plant biotechnology through an active partnerships policy.

Biogemma SAS is a European company specialized in plant biotechnology research, created and financed by agricultural and financial business companies. Biogemma regroups specialists of plant breeding and organizations sustaining downstream agro-industrial activities, the co-operative groups Limagrain, Euralis and RAGT, and the financial corporations Sofiproteol and Unigrains. Through 4 main research centers in France and Europe, Biogemma employs more than 100 people. Biogemma has developed partnerships with the public research through the genomic research programme Genoplante from the beginning in 1999.