Devgen (Euronext Brussels: DEVG), a leader in Biotech Crop Protection, has been awarded a 3.3 million Euro technology grant from the Flanders government through IWT to develop new technologies to protect crops against plant pests.

The goal of this 3 year program is to build further on Devgen’s current proprietary technologies and to address plant pathogens which cannot be dealt with using the current commercial GMO technologies.

Devgen combines its proprietary RNAi and protein based technologies, with substantive pest & plant biology knowledge to discover new proprietary products that make plants resistant to attacks by insects, nematodes or plant diseases. Devgen has signed collaborative partnerships with Pioneer Overseas Corporation and Monsanto Corporation to discover traits for selected pests on corn, cotton and soy. Other pest-crop combinations are being developed in-house.

"Flanders is a world class knowledge hub in plant biotechnology", says Devgen’s CEO Thierry Bogaert, "and we welcome the support of the Flanders government to strengthen Flanders technological leadership in this sector. The IWT grant is an important validation of Devgen’s novel approach and strategy. The project addresses the need for a novel generation of selective and environmentally friendly crop protection solutions to effectively control plant pests that cause significant damage to the world’s agricultural crops".

Devgen (Euronext Brussels: DEVG) is an innovator in biotechnology focused on discovering, developing and commercializing:

• a novel generation of biotech products to protect a wide spectrum of crops from damage incurred from pests;
• safer and more environmentally friendly agro-chemical products to protect crops from damage inflicted by plant parasitic nematodes;
• novel therapeutic concepts and preclinical drug candidates for treatment of metabolic disease (diabetes, obesity, arrhythmia).

Each of these solutions is developed on a platform of in-house designed research, development programs and technologies. Devgen has partnerships with industry leaders such as Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer, FMC and Sumitomo.
Incorporated in 1997, Devgen has offices in Ghent (Belgium) and Singapore - with a total workforce of over 100 people.