Evogene announces positive 2nd year field trial results in corn bio-stimulant ag-biologicals program

Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ, TASE: EVGN), a leading biotechnology company developing novel products for life science markets through the use of a proprietary computational predictive biology platform, announced today highly promising second year field trial results for its bio-stimulant microbial seed treatments for the improvement of corn yield, which are under exclusive license to DuPont Pioneer.

The bio-stimulant seed treatments tested in these recent trials conducted by Evogene demonstrated up to 20% increases in corn yield under moderate drought conditions. These seed treatments were based on Evogene identified microbial strains that had demonstrated yield improvement in previous field trials, as disclosed in late 2016, following a discovery process which included in-silico prediction and prioritization. Following 2016 field results, the strains underwent optimization of microbial formulation and fermentation processes, and the combination of multiple microbial strains into microbial teams (“teaming”) which demonstrated the promising results during 2017. The next level of field testing will be undertaken as part of our multiyear research collaboration with DuPont-Pioneer.

In addition to the bio-stimulants collaboration for corn yield with DuPont Pioneer, Evogene has an internal bio stimulant program focused on wheat yield, which is now moving forward with second year field trials following positive results in its 1st year trials in wheat.

The bio-stimulant market is an evolving segment of the ag-biologicals market with widely predicted substantial potential, currently estimated at over $1.6 billion and with a projected annual growth rate of more than 10%. ^[1]

Ido Dor, EVP and GM Ag-Biologicals stated: “I am extremely pleased with the positive results achieved in our corn bio-stimulant field trials, both with respect to this program itself and our entire Ag-Biologicals activity. This advancement, along with the positive results we have demonstrated in wheat and our rapid progress in bio-pesticides, strengthen our pipeline and provide substantial commercial opportunities for the Ag-Biologicals division, especially due to the relatively short time to market that is expected for this class of products.”

Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO stated: “Even though Evogene’s Ag-Biologicals division was initiated only in 2015, we have already made significant progress, as shown by these positive results. The results were made possible only due to our broadly applicable computational predictive biology platform and the accumulated know-how that allowed the identification and prioritization of the microbial strains and ‘teaming’ in this program. I am confident that this progress will lead us within the coming years to the commercialization of multiple potent and efficient bio-stimulant seed treatments and other ag-biologicals products.”

^[1] Based on the report of Market & Markets, May 2016