Monsanto Company and Pasadena-based Protabit LLC, have announced a two-year collaboration to develop new tools for protein design and optimisation, which could help shorten project timelines for agricultural biotechnology products.

A shorter product discovery process would enable Monsanto to more quickly identify pipeline gene candidates in support of the company's sustainability goal of doubling yields in its core crops of corn, cotton, and soy by 2030, compared to a base year of 2000.

Under the agreement, Protabit will develop new software code to integrate computational approaches for protein optimisation allowing for exchange of information across platforms thus providing more flexibility and easier assimilation of new breakthroughs, speeding up the process of protein design and optimisation.

Protabit will also work on developing new computational approaches for protein optimisation.

Monsanto will have exclusive rights to tools developed by Protabit for use in the fields of plant improvement and agriculture.

Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products.

Protabit LLC is a recently formed company focused on integrating existing computational protein design methods and developing the next generation of protein design software.