Paradigm also announced that Monsanto has
amended the commercial partnership agreement by eliminating its
termination option in exchange for broader rights under the
agreement. This amendment is significant since it commits
Monsanto to a total term of at least six years, with options to
extend the scope of work in time and volume. Additionally, the
research plan was modified to maximize the potential of valuable
trait discovery and accelerate the commercialization timeline
for products from which Paradigm will receive royalties.
"In our partnership, we are routinely exceeding
the aggressive milestones that were set 20 months ago," said
John A. Ryals, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of
Paradigm Genetics. "Our achievement is directly attributable to
increased efficiencies in our GeneFunction Factory™ and
reflects the success we have in determining gene function in
plants at an unprecedented rate."
"Paradigm continues to be a great partner. They
have built an impressive industrial-scale capability platform
and to date have delivered the high quality science we expect,"
said Chris Burnley, Vice President for Strategy and Alliances,
Monsanto Genomics. "This amendment underscores the important
role Paradigm plays in our integrated discovery pipeline."
Under the terms of the commercial partnership,
Paradigm is using its GeneFunction Factory™ to discover
the function of genes selected by Monsanto for use in its
product development program. Paradigm will share in any product
revenues generated through this collaboration in the form of
royalties.
The collaboration agreement was expanded in May
2000 to include Renessen LLC, a joint venture between Monsanto
and Cargill Inc., which develops quality traits and customized
products that enhance the functionality of grains, oilseeds, and
other crops.
Paradigm brings to the collaboration its
expertise in gene function analysis and bioinformatics.
Paradigm’s high-throughput analysis methodology is comprised of
a series of proprietary analytical processes combined with
proprietary data collection, refinement and data mining tools to
investigate plant and microbial gene function.
