September 25, 2013

Syngenta, Evogene extend collaboration on soy cyst nematode

  
Press release 

  

Evogene Ltd. announced a three year extension of its research collaboration with Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc. which was established in mid-2009 to identify plant genes providing resistance to soy cyst nematode.

Plant parasite nematode is one of the most devastating and yield reducing pests affecting agriculture today, accounting for almost US$100 billion in crop damages annually. The soil borne parasite is widely prevalent in soy, attacking the roots of developing soy plants and resulting in yield losses of between 30% and 50% in heavily infected fields. The impact to US soy growers alone has been estimated to reach US$1.3 billion annually. 

The three year collaboration extension follows successful results obtained by Syngenta for candidate genes provided by Evogene as part of the original collaboration. Candidate genes have demonstrated reduced nematode infection and have advanced to further testing in Syngenta's soy pipeline for potential development and future commercialisation of improved soy seeds.

"Nematodes are one of the most underdiagnosed plant diseases dearly in need of new technological solutions," said Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, Head of Biotechnology for Syngenta. "We believe that through our collaboration with Evogene, we will be able to bring new offers for nematode control to growers more quickly."

Under the extended collaboration, Evogene will utilise broader discovery strategies to provide Syngenta with additional candidate genes acting under new modes of action to achieve nematode resistance. Moreover, Evogene will utilise its proprietary PlaNet technology, part of Evogene's integrated Gene2ProductTM platform, to predict the most promising candidate genes for stacking (i.e. combining of multiple genes) in order to further improve product efficacy.

"We are very pleased by both the results achieved to date with respect to soy cyst nematode resistance and our continuing and expanding relationship with Syngenta, and are confident that the combination of our discovery capabilities and Syngenta's development expertise will result in novel paths to address this devastating pest," said Ofer Haviv, President and CEO of Evogene. "The agreement extension is an important addition to our growing activities in addressing biotic stress conditions, such as nematodes and other plant parasites, where Evogene has built significant capabilities for identifying novel genes to combat the variety of acute biotic stresses affecting the world's key crops."

Under both the original agreement and the extension, Evogene is entitled to receive research payments, success-based milestone payments and future royalty payments based on the sale of resulting products by Syngenta.

Evogene is a plant genomics company, utilising a proprietary integrated technology infrastructure to enhance seed traits underlying crop productivity and offers a complete solution for crop productivity improvement through biotechnology and advanced breeding using a unique technology infrastructure that is based on deep scientific understandings of plant genomics and proprietary computational capabilities.