Cibus welcomes the European Union’s progress as legislation for New Genomic Techniques to boost innovation and sustainability moves forward

Cibus, Inc. (the ″Company″), a leading agricultural technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies, welcomes significant progress in the regulation of New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) in the European Union (EU).

On Friday 14th March, EU member states endorsed the EU Council's (the ″Council″) negotiating mandate on the regulation of plants obtained by NGTs. This important advancement enables the Council to engage in 3-way discussions (known as trilogue discussions) with the EU Parliament and the European Commission to agree the final text of the legislation prior to final adoption.

The legislation is part of a package of measures designed to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources and to strengthen the resilience of EU food systems. It describes a category of NGTs, that include products of gene editing that could be obtained in nature or by conventional breeding. These plants would be determined to be ‘conventional-like’ and once verified as NGT-1, would be exempted from the rules under the EU’s GMO legislation and would not be required to be labelled.

In addition to enabling EU growers to benefit from improved varieties, the proposed regulation would help facilitate international trade by bringing EU policy closer to that of trading partners in North and South America, the United Kingdom, India, Australia, and Japan.

″The long-awaited Council agreement is another significant milestone in the EU legislative process that aims to provide a welcome boost to innovators, particularly in academia and small and mid-sized enterprises, who are developing NGT products that can contribute to a sustainable EU agri-food system,″ commented Tony Moran, Senior Vice President of International Development and Government Affairs at Cibus.

″Cibus’ RTDS^® technologies produce improved crop varieties that are ‘conventional-like’ under the EU proposal. Our specific work on rapeseed customer genetics, targets reduced seed loss, increased disease resistance and enhanced nutrient use efficiency,″ stated Dr. Peter Beetham, Cibus’ Interim CEO, President and COO. ″We’re excited by the prospect of being able to develop these varieties under European conditions and to work with European seed companies to make our traits available to European farmers. A supportive EU regulatory framework for NGTs would have global implications as improved seed genetics using gene editing will have a clearer path to commercialization and international trade.″