Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) and Bayer CropScience announced today a collaboration to increase the productivity and yield of a Bayer CropScience core crop, especially with regard to stress conditions such as drought. Under a recently signed agreement, Bayer CropScience, has exclusively licensed the rights to certain genes discovered by Evogene which have demonstrated improved plant yield and other performance enhancements in various plant species. Evogene is to receive an initial fee, success-based milestone payments, and royalties on sales.
Evogene held its Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) IPO two weeks ago. Ahead of the IPO, Evogene explained that customary royalties in deals of this sort are 3-7% of sales, with the initial fee and milestone payments reaching several million dollars.
The company posted revenue of NIS 400,000 in 2006. "It is Evogene’s goal to collaborate with the leading companies worldwide in creating plant varieties with improved traits based on our discoveries”, stated Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO. “Therefore we are obviously delighted to begin this collaboration with Bayer CropScience for the improvement of this core crop.” Mr. Haviv concluded. Dr. Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, Head of Research at BioScience, a business operations unit of Bayer CropScience, welcomes the new business relationship with Evogene. “Advantages in yield and yield stability have been the basis for the fast adoption of our superior hybrids. The integration of these discovered genes into our R&D pipeline can allow us to offer further benefits to our customers, especially with regard to ensuring high yields in difficult climatic conditions.” Evogene engages in improved plant traits through computational genomics, molecular biology and advanced breeding methods. Until its spin-off as a separate company in 2002, Evogene was the agro-biotechnology division of Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN). Bayer CropScience AG, is a subsidiary of Bayer AG with annual sales of about EUR 5.7 billion (2006.)
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on June 18, 2007,
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