REHOVOT, Israel, March 18, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evogene Ltd. (NYSE:EVGN) (TASE:EVGN), a leading company for the improvement of crop productivity and economics for the food, feed and biofuel industries, disclosed today its first collaboration agreement with a multinational food company. The focus of the multi-year collaboration is to improve productivity of a key crop underlying one of the consumer company's leading branded product lines through advanced breeding methods.
"As the consumer market becomes increasingly competitive, the industry is displaying increased interest and involvement in assuring the long-term quality, availability and sustainability of the agricultural feedstocks required for its branded products," said Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO. "This collaboration allows us to venture into this previously untapped segment of consumer goods, where Evogene's unique capabilities in improving the performance and productivity of underlying crops, can help meet the growing needs of food companies for more sustainable and higher quality feedstock supply."
The agreement leverages Evogene's decade-long experience, data base and know-how for yield improvement and advanced breeding methods. Under the agreement, Evogene will utilize its proprietary computational and plant validation platforms to develop improved pre-breeding varieties of the target crop. Proof of concept validation activities will be conducted in both model plants and the target crop, which represents a new addition to Evogene's growing crop improvement portfolio.
The three year collaboration, signed late last year, entitles Evogene to research and development fees and success based payments.
About Evogene Ltd.:
Evogene (NYSE:EVGN) (TASE:EVGN) is a leading company for the improvement of crop productivity and economics for the food, feed and biofuel industries. The Company has strategic collaborations with world-leading agricultural companies to develop improved seed traits in relation to yield and a-biotic stress (such as tolerance to drought), and biotic stress (such as resistance to disease and nematodes), in key crops as corn, soybean, wheat and rice, and is also focused on the research and development of new products for crop protection (such as weed control). In addition, the Company has a wholly-owned subsidiary, Evofuel, developing seeds for second generation feedstock for biodiesel. For more information, please visit www.evogene.com.
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