REHOVOT, ISRAEL -- 07/24/07 --
Evogene Ltd., a publicly quoted plant
biotechnology company (TELAVIV: EVGN), and CIRAD, a French scientific
organization, announce the expansion of their multi-year collaboration
signed in 2004. The goal of the new project is to introduce Evogene's lead
candidate, EVO133 gene, into cotton and to validate its improvement for
drought tolerance.
Cotton is the third largest genetically modified crop by its importance,
after soybean and corn, and provides 40% of the global fiber requirements.
Cotton is grown on about 35 million hectares worldwide, 10 million hectares
(28%) of which are grown with GM varieties. Cotton is largely grown in
marginal agricultural areas where precipitations are low and drought
resistance is often the first limiting factor for yield. Drought
resistance is one of the key factors which can help dry areas stay
competitive in the global cotton market.
EVO133 is Evogene's lead candidate gene for yield, and yield stability
under drought, heat and salinity conditions. EVO133 has been tested in
three seasons of field trials in processing tomato varieties and has
demonstrated its potential to increase yield under normal conditions,
reduce yield penalty under drought conditions as well as under salinity and
heat stresses. The validation of EVO133 is also advancing in other target
crops under other collaborations, which have been announced publicly,
namely in Corn with Biogemma and Soybean with Mertec.
Ofer Haviv, Evogene President and CEO, stated: "Having identified our lead
candidate for yield and yield stability, we are excited to advance towards
obtaining promising results in the cotton crop. CIRAD's decades of
experience in developing cotton varieties around the globe, makes it a very
attractive partner for this project."
Bernard Hau, Head of the CIRAD Cotton Research Unit, stated: "The search
for rustic varieties resisting to drought corresponds to the demand of the
developing countries and its importance will increase with climate change.
CIRAD is pleased to have established a partnership with the Israeli company
EVOGENE, a partner offering new tools to efficiently address this theme.
Part of this project is financed by the EUREKA initiative through the
French National Agency for Research (ANR)."
About CIRAD
CIRAD, the "Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique
pour le développement," is the French Agricultural Research Centre for
international Development. Its mission is to contribute to the economic
development of the tropical and subtropical regions through research on
agriculture, training, and dissemination of its results. It employs 1,850
people, including 950 senior staff, working in French overseas departments
and some fifty other countries. Its budget amounts to approximately 180
million Euros. CIRAD has three research departments: the Biological Systems
Department, the Performance of Tropical Production and Processing Systems
Department and the Environments and Societies Department. CIRAD operates
through its own research centres, collaborating with national agricultural
research systems, universities and international centres, as well as
development projects. CIRAD runs a Cotton Research Unit with a staff of 40
including 30 researchers and 10 technicians, in Africa, the Americas, South
East Asia and Montpellier (France) (for more information www.cirad.fr).
About Evogene
Evogene's mission is to be a world leader in delivering improved plant
traits to the agro-biotechnology and Biofuel industries through the use of
a continuously improving proprietary platform that combines
state-of-the-art computational genomics, molecular biology and advanced
breeding methods. Evogene's current product development portfolio includes
such traits as: abiotic stress tolerance and yield, enhancement of cotton
fiber quality, improving nitrogen use efficiency, increasing oil yield for
the BioDiesel industry and plant manufacturing of therapeutic proteins.
Evogene was created in 2002 as a spin-off of the agro-biotechnology
division of Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN). Evogene's core in-silico
technology, the ATHLETE, is based on Compugen's proprietary LEADS
computational platform. Evogene completed an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock
Exchange in June 2007.
For additional information, please visit Evogene's Website at
www.evogene.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements." These statements
include words like "may," "expects," "believes," "scheduled" and "intends,"
and they describe opinions about future events. These forward-looking
statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause
the actual results, performance or achievements of Evogene Ltd. to be
materially different from any future results, performance or achievements
expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Contact Information
Evogene:
Ofer Haviv
COO & CFO
E-mail: Email Contact
Tel: +972-8-931-1905
CIRAD:
Bernard Hau
Head of the Cotton Research Unit
E-mail: Email Contact
Tel: +33 -4-67 61 56 66
