Gent, Belgium
June 26, 2003

CropDesign NV today announced that the Institute for Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT) has decided to support its research on stress tolerance genes and development of stress tolerant cereal crops with an amount of up to 2.4 Mio EUR. Stress factors such as drought and salt are among the most significant issues threatening agricultural production on a global scale. The impact of these stress factors is expected to increase over time, e.g. due to the effect of global warming.

“This decision by IWT is a strong sign of recognition for the technological position that we have already built within CropDesign. In the past couple of years we have systematically mobilised all necessary resources to be able to develop, in a rapid and efficient way, stress tolerance for the world’s most important crops such as maize and rice. With this support of IWT we can continue our effort at full speed and develop the technology in the relevant crops up to a point where we can negotiate with major seed companies from a position of strength” says Herman Van Mellaert, CEO.

Wim Van Camp, director Technology Management comments : “Through collaboration with academic partners we have assembled a collection of promising genes with an important role in the plant’s response to stress. A crucial step is to actually test and compare these many ‘candidate genes’ and that is exactly what our TraitMill platform is designed for. TraitMill is a unique high-throughput platform to create new forms of genetic variation and to systematically test these in rice. In our high-tech greenhouse we simulate a very large number of miniature field trials, which allows us to make a highly reliable assessment in a very short period of time.” The development of TraitMill was also supported by IWT.

The best genes will then be tested in the field and further developed in stress-tolerant rice varieties. They will also be introduced into maize, another cereal crop for which the commercial stakes are very high and which is closely related to rice.

“Stress tolerance is essential to achieve a higher and more stable yield and that is exactly what seed companies and farmers, both in the developed and the developing world are looking for” concludes Professor Em. Marc Van Montagu of the Institute for Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries.

About CropDesign

CropDesign develops improved traits for cereal crops. The company is primarily focused on improving cereal yield and thus addresses the most important characteristics of the world’s largest crops. Trait discovery at CropDesign is powered by the TraitMill. This technology platform allows to rapidly and effectively translate results from genomics research into real traits for real crops. CropDesign has already developed a significant portfolio of proprietary traits which are currently in different stages of trait development.

About IWT

The “Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders” (IWT) was established in 1991 by the Flemish government as a regional public institution to provide R&D and innovation support in Flanders. IWT has various financial instruments at its disposal and an annual budget of 150 Mio EUR. In addition to providing funding of R&D projects, IWT assists local industry through various services relating to technology transfer advice, partner search and access to
international subsidies. All these activities have made IWT a driving force for R&D and innovation in Flanders.