Evogene Announces a Significant Milestone in its Next Generation Herbicide Pipeline
September 05 2018 - 7:00AM
Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ, TASE: EVGN), a leading biotechnology company
developing novel products for life science markets, announced today
a significant milestone in its next generation herbicide pipeline.
Evogene’s Ag-Chemicals division demonstrated biological proof in
lab assays that Evogene discovered molecule families bind to
essential target proteins representing new MoA’s (Mode-of-Action).
These next generation herbicide candidates have the potential to
overcome the industry’s main hurdle – growing weed resistance, with
improved efficacy while maintaining a high standard of safety since
they have now been proven to address novel target proteins not
present in humans.
Herbicides are weed killing chemicals, part of
the general pesticide and crop protection market. The market size
attributed to herbicides was estimated at more than $20B in 20161.
Herbicide protection plays an important role in global food
security; for example, without herbicide protection it is estimated
that approximately 20% of the global crop yield of wheat would be
lost2. Current herbicide products are based on known targets and
MoA’s introduced to market over 30 years ago, while weed resistance
to these solutions is globally on the rise, creating a critical
need for next generation herbicides based on new MoA’s.
Evogene’s Ag-Chemicals division herbicide
pipeline has been established through the use of the Company’s
broadly applicable CPB (Computational Predictive Biology) platform.
The CPB platform’s discovery and optimization processes of chemical
molecules take into account an array of product attributes,
including different aspects of commercial viability and safety
profile required according to new regulatory standards.
As reported in the past, these chemical families
have already been evaluated in lab and greenhouse testing where
herbicidal activity was demonstrated, and today, Evogene has
announced that such chemical families were also proven to inhibit
the predicted novel targets representing a new MoA. These chosen
novel targets are not present in humans and therefore have a
potential high safety profile.
Further steps include optimization of the
chemical compound ‘families’ to improve herbicidal efficacy in
greenhouse testing, towards achieving commercial efficacy, which
will then be validated in field trials.
Eran Kosover, EVP and GM, Ag-Chemicals
stated: “We are very excited by the important achievement
announced today, as the industry has not seen a herbicide based on
a new MoA for over 30 years. We are now moving forward rapidly on a
development path designed to overcome one of the most pressing
challenges in the market – increasing resistance to
herbicides.”
Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO
stated: “While our Ag-Chemicals division was established
only in 2014, we are happy by the continuous progress of this
division and the milestone announced today, showing a new MoA with
the binding of Evogene discovered chemicals to novel target
proteins. This continuous progress was achieved with the use of our
unique CPB platform. We believe that these unique capabilities are
leading to the development of potent next generation herbicides
with a high safety profile.”
About Evogene Ltd.:
Evogene (NASDAQ, TASE: EVGN) is a leading
biotechnology company developing novel products for major life
science markets through the use of a unique computational
predictive biology (CPB) platform incorporating deep scientific
understandings and advanced computational technologies. This
platform is utilized by the Company to discover and develop
innovative ag-chemical, ag-biological and ag-seed products (GM and
non-GM), and by two subsidiaries; Evofuel, focused on castor seeds,
and Biomica, focused on human microbiome therapeutics. Through its
collaborations with world-leading agricultural companies such as
BASF, Corteva, Bayer and ICL, Evogene has licensed genes, small
molecules and microbes to partners under milestone and royalty
bearing agreements. For more information, please visit
www.evogene.com
Forward Looking Statements:This
press release contains "forward-looking statements" relating to
future events. These statements may be identified by words such as
"may", "could", “expects”, "intends", “anticipates”, “plans”,
“believes”, “scheduled”, “estimates” or words of similar meaning.
Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates,
projections and assumptions, describe opinions about future events,
involve certain risks and uncertainties which are difficult to
predict and are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore,
actual future results, performance or achievements of Evogene may
differ materially from what is expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, many of
which beyond Evogene's control, including, without limitation,
those risk factors contained in Evogene’s reports filed with the
appropriate securities authority. Evogene disclaims any obligation
or commitment to update these forward-looking statements to reflect
future events or developments or changes in expectations,
estimates, projections and assumptions.
Contact:Nir Zalik IR/PR
ManagerE: IR@evogene.comT: (+972)-8-931-1963
US Investor RelationsVivian Cervantes PCG
AdvisoryE: vivian@pcgadvisory.comT: 646-863-6274
1 Phillips McDougall
2 According to industry estimates
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