Bayer CropScience and Dow AgroSciences sign cotton cross-licensing agreements

Bayer CropScience and Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), have entered into cross-licensing agreements regarding cotton technologies. With these agreements, growers will benefit from greater access to new traits and technologies from both companies. As these new tools become available, they will offer growers more choices and flexibility and will provide the opportunity to become more productive.

Dow AgroSciences will receive from Bayer CropScience a license to commercialize the GlyTol™ glyphosate tolerant technology in Dow AgroSciences’ PhytoGen® cottonseed varieties in the U.S. and an option to license in other territories as soon as Bayer CropScience has obtained regulatory approval for the GlyTol™ event in such other countries. Bayer CropScience will in turn receive a license to commercialize Dow AgroSciences’ WideStrike® Insect Protection technology in Brazil and other countries of Latin America and an option to license in other territories as soon as Dow AgroSciences has obtained regulatory approval for the WideStrike® event in such other countries. In addition, Dow AgroSciences granted Bayer a license in the U.S. on its glyphosate tolerant cotton patent. In 2004, Dow AgroSciences was granted U.S. patent rights to glyphosate resistance in cotton.

GlyTol™ is a proprietary technology developed by Bayer CropScience conferring tolerance to the herbicide glyphosate. Specifically GlyTol™ cotton technology provides season-long, in-plant crop tolerance to over-the-top applications of glyphosate herbicides, thus giving growers flexibility to make on-farm choices about their technologies and herbicides.

WideStrike® Insect Protection, currently marketed in the United States, provides season-long, whole-plant protection from insect feeding cotton pests. The technology uses two insect resistant traits that effectively control important cotton pests, especially fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), tobacco budworm (Heliothis virescens), pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella), and the cotton leafworm (Alabama argillacea).

"Our agreement with Dow AgroSciences to license WideStrike® Insect Protection technology in Latin America demonstrates Bayer´s strong engagement to the Latin American cotton grower. This is a great step forward in our efforts to deliver increasingly integrated solutions to cotton growers in that important market, which includes our excellent FiberMax® germplasm, LibertyLink™ herbicide-tolerant technology, which was launched recently in Brazil, and a wide array of crop protection products. It also confirms our status as a strong technology provider,” said Dr. Joachim Schneider, Head of the BioScience business unit of Bayer CropScience.

Antonio Galindez, President and CEO of Dow AgroSciences, said: “This action further demonstrates Dow AgroSciences’ significant long-standing commitment to the cotton market, and we are very pleased to be working with Bayer. Through the combination of these leading technologies, such as WideStrike® Insect Protection and GlyTol™, growers worldwide will have more choices in improving their productivity, which illustrates our commitment to innovative solutions for cotton growers.”

Financial and further details of the agreement were not disclosed.