Cibus, Albaugh LLC and RTDC Company Limited affirm collaboration to enable commercialization of Cibus’ first gene edited weed management solution for U.S. rice growers

Cibus, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBUS), a leading agricultural technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies for royalties announced an agreement affirming its collaboration with RTDC Corporation Limited and Albaugh LLC to provide Clethodim as part of Cibus’ weed management solution for U.S. rice farmers using Cibus’ HT-3 trait. This continued collaboration with Albaugh, a global leader in crop protection, lends complementary market development and herbicide registration expertise and experience to Cibus’ gene editing trait expertise. The collaboration is instrumental to Cibus’ herbicide resistant rice trait commercialization efforts as Cibus also continues its work with its U.S. rice seed customers to bring its Clethodim-tolerant trait to market. These seed and crop protection collaborations are expected to bring together the rice production knowledge and expertise needed to successfully deliver improved rice weed management solutions for U.S. rice growers.

Weed pressure impacts crop yield and quality. Herbicide tolerance traits are an important tool for growers to manage weeds and are a key product area of the multi-billion-dollar trait industry globally. Cibus’ Clethodim tolerant HT-3 trait is an important breakthrough for a novel weed management solution for rice farmers and is one of the two herbicide tolerant traits in rice developed by Cibus that are expected to give rice growers excellent new solutions to manage weeds. It expected to be the first of several stacked weed management traits in rice from Cibus. Cibus currently has four seed partners for this trait: two in the United States and two in South America and is in discussion with other major rice seed companies to advance HT-3 rice in Asia.

Chad W. Shelton, Albaugh’s Group Director for Herbicide Tolerant Crops, stated, ″This strategic collaboration and innovative technology has a strong potential to help rice growers in the U.S. and strategic rice markets around the globe keep pace with the most up-to-date herbicide-tolerant crop technologies for assuring high yields and crop quality. Albaugh is excited to be a part of this strategic partnership to develop for rice growers a cropping system powered by the HT-3 trait to help create and deliver performance value.″

Calvin Lu, Vice General Manager of RTDC, commented, ″This technology combines the best of Gene Editing technologies from Cibus and superior herbicides provided by Albaugh to help rice growers to increase weed management options with better efficacy against difficult weeds. We are proud to be part of this project combining strengths of three companies in terms of technologies and geographies.″

Norm Sissons, Senior Vice President of Seeds and Traits at Cibus, added, ″This partnership with Albaugh completes a critical component of our commercial strategy to bring our Clethodim-tolerant HT-3 trait to market. As we further our collaboration with Albaugh and its professional team of experts with a strong commercial focus enabling getting products to market, we see a promising path to bring Cibus’ novel weed management solution to Rice growers.″