St. Louis, Missouri and Rehovot,
Israel
September 25, 2007
Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) and
Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN)
today announced a collaboration to improve nitrogen use
efficiency in corn, soybeans, canola and cotton. Under the
agreement, Monsanto gains exclusive rights to a number of genes
discovered by Evogene that help plants maintain yield with lower
applications of nitrogen. Monsanto will work to evaluate the use
of those genes in its research and development pipeline. The
potential candidates from Evogene are complementary to the
nitrogen utilization genes already in testing in Monsanto's
pipeline and could provide the opportunity to further a series
of upgrades for this key target area. The financial terms of the
agreement were not disclosed.
Nitrogen fertilizer represents one of the largest input costs in
agriculture; it accounts for approximately one-fifth of the
operating costs for a corn producer. In the US alone, farmers
spend more than $3 billion annually on nitrogen fertilizer
application of corn fields, with plants typically absorbing less
than half of the nitrogen fertilizer applied.
"Improving nitrogen use efficiency in crops has immense value
not only for farmers but also for our environment," said Fred
Below, professor of crop physiology at the University of
Illinois. "These improvements provide the greatest opportunity
for increased profitability, while also offering a new way to
reduce the environmental impact of corn production."
"Monsanto is continually innovating new technologies to help
farmers get more out of every seed and to do more with less,
including maximizing the nitrogen efficiency of crops," said
Steve Padgette, Monsanto's vice president of biotechnology. "We
look forward to working with Evogene to continue delivering
valuable products to farmers' fields that reduce agriculture's
impact on the environment."
"Monsanto is acknowledged worldwide for its excellent
capabilities in delivering innovative technology to farmers,"
said Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO. "Therefore we
are obviously delighted Monsanto has chosen our computational
gene discovery technology for the development of its next
generation of improved crop traits."
Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of
technology-based solutions and agricultural products that
improve farm productivity and food quality.
Evogene's mission is to be a world leader in delivering improved
plant traits to the agro-biotechnology and Biofuel industries
through the use of a continuously improving proprietary platform
that combines state-of-the-art computational genomics, molecular
biology and advanced breeding methods. Evogene's current product
development portfolio includes such traits as: abiotic stress
tolerance and yield, improving nitrogen use efficiency,
enhancement of cotton fiber quality, increasing oil yield for
the BioDiesel industry and plant manufacturing of therapeutic
proteins. Evogene was founded in 2002 as a spin-off of the
agro-biotechnology division of Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN).
Evogene's core in-silico technology, the ATHLETE, is based on
Compugen's proprietary LEADS computational platform. Evogene
completed an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in June 2007.
Other news
from Evogene
Ltd. |
|
