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Rehovot, Israel
May 21, 2008
Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) reports financial results for the
first quarter ended March 31, 2008.
"Evogene continues to demonstrate accelerating progress towards
its goal of being the leading provider of improved plants for
the ag-biotech and biofuel industries under milestone and
revenue sharing agreements,” stated Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s
President and CEO. ”Evogene discovered genes are now being
introduced into four major food crops: Corn, Rice, Soybean and
Canola through collaborations with leading international seed
companies, such as: Bayer CropScience, DuPont/Pioneer, Limagrain
and Monsanto, and during the past quarter we announced a
collaboration with Viterra, a leading provider of seed varieties
in Canada, to develop canola with
improved yield and environmental stress tolerance. With current
developments in world population and food supplies, dramatic
rise in commodities prices and global climate changes, we
strongly believe that improving yields under various conditions
is a major step towards coping with critical agricultural
problems caused by these
trends," Mr. Haviv concluded.
Revenues for the first quarter of 2008 were $116,000*, compared
to $17,000** for the first quarter of 2007. Operating loss for
the first quarter of 2008 was $1.2 million, and the net loss for
that quarter was $1.1 million (including financing income of
$190,000 due to implementation of the International Financial
Reporting Standards), or $0.07 per share. Operating loss for the
first quarter of 2007 was $738,000, and the net loss for that
quarter was $218,000 (including financing income of $494,000 due
to implementation of the International Financial Reporting
Standards), or $0.015 per share.
As of March 31, 2008, Evogene had $9 million in cash, cash
equivalents, cash deposits and short-term marketable securities.
*Converted from New Israeli Shekels (NIS) at the exchange
rate on March 31, 2008 (3.553 NIS = $1.00) for the convenience
of readers.
** Converted from New Israeli Shekels (NIS) at the exchange rate
on March 31, 2007 (4.155 NIS = $1.00) for the convenience of
readers.
Evogene is a leading developer of improved plants for the
ag-biotech and biofuel industries. The Company’s proprietary
product development platform combines world leading
computational gene discovery technologies, high throughput
selection systems and advanced breeding methods. The platform’s
computational biology component - the ATHLETE - is based on
Compugen's (Nasdaq: CGEN) in-silico predictive discovery
capabilities. Evogene's current programs focus on yield under
normal and various environmental stress conditions (such as
drought), fertilizer utilization and the improvement of plants
specifically for biofuel uses. Evogene has collaboration and
licensing agreements with world leading companies in the
ag-biotech and alternative energy industries. Evogene's
headquarters are in Rehovot, Israel, and is traded on the Tel
Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE:EVGN). |
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