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Evogene Ltd

Evogene Ltd (EVGN)

0.75
0.0148
(2.01%)
Closed March 28 04:00PM
0.75
0.00
(0.00%)
After Hours: 04:03PM

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Key stats and details

Current Price
0.75
Bid
0.70
Ask
0.7401
Volume
58,719
0.7282 Day's Range 0.769899
0.4502 52 Week Range 1.44
Market Cap
Previous Close
0.7352
Open
0.7282
Last Trade
13
@
0.7295
Last Trade Time
Financial Volume
$ 44,179
VWAP
0.752372
Average Volume (3m)
187,405
Shares Outstanding
50,549,812
Dividend Yield
-
PE Ratio
-1.42
Earnings Per Share (EPS)
-0.53
Revenue
5.18M
Net Profit
-26.64M

About Evogene Ltd

Evogene Ltd is a computational biology company targeting to revolutionize product development for life-science based industries, including human health, agriculture, and industrial applications. The company established its technology, the Computational Predictive Biology (CPB) platform. The CPB plat... Evogene Ltd is a computational biology company targeting to revolutionize product development for life-science based industries, including human health, agriculture, and industrial applications. The company established its technology, the Computational Predictive Biology (CPB) platform. The CPB platform is designed to computationally discover and develop life-science products based on microbes, small molecules and genetic elements as the core components for such products. It holds a number of subsidiaries utilizing the CPB platform, for the development of human microbiome-based therapeutics, medical cannabis, ag-biologicals, ag-chemicals, seed traits and ag-solutions for castor oil production. It generates maximum revenue from the Agriculture segment. Show more

Sector
Agricultural Chemicals
Industry
Biological Pds,ex Diagnstics
Website
Headquarters
Rehovot, Center, Isr
Founded
2011
Evogene Ltd is listed in the Agricultural Chemicals sector of the NASDAQ with ticker EVGN. The last closing price for Evogene was $0.74. Over the last year, Evogene shares have traded in a share price range of $ 0.4502 to $ 1.44.

Evogene currently has 50,549,812 shares outstanding. The market capitalization of Evogene is $37.91 million. Evogene has a price to earnings ratio (PE ratio) of -1.42.

EVGN Latest News

Evogene Announces Filing of Annual Report on Form 20-F

Evogene Announces Filing of Annual Report on Form 20-F PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 28, 2024 REHOVOT, Israel, March 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a...

Evogene Reports Receipt of Nasdaq Minimum Bid Price Notification

Evogene Reports Receipt of Nasdaq Minimum Bid Price Notification PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 20, 2024 REHOVOT, Israel, March 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE:...

Bayer AG and Lavie Bio Continue for Second Year of Biofungicides Validation Following Successful Lab and Greenhouse Testing

Bayer AG and Lavie Bio Continue for Second Year of Biofungicides Validation Following Successful Lab and Greenhouse Testing PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 19, 2024 REHOVOT, Israel, March 19...

Lavie Bio and Ceres Global Ag Corp. Collaborate to Include YalosTM Bio-Inoculant, in Regenerative Agriculture Initiatives in North America

Lavie Bio and Ceres Global Ag Corp. Collaborate to Include YalosTM Bio-Inoculant, in Regenerative Agriculture Initiatives in North America PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 13, 2024 REHOVOT...

Form 6-K - Report of foreign issuer [Rules 13a-16 and 15d-16]

UNITED STATES  SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549 FORM 6-K   REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE ISSUER PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15d-16 OF...

Evogene Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results

Evogene Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 7, 2024 Conference call and webcast: today, March 7, 2024, 9:00 am E.T. +1-888-407-2553 or...

AgPlenus Achieves Milestone in Collaboration with Corteva to Develop Novel Herbicides

AgPlenus Achieves Milestone in Collaboration with Corteva to Develop Novel Herbicides PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 6, 2024 REHOVOT, Israel, March 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AgPlenus Ltd., a...

Casterra Announces New Agreements with Seed Producers in Brazil and Africa to Meet Growing Demand for its Elite Castor Seed Varieties

Casterra Announces New Agreements with Seed Producers in Brazil and Africa to Meet Growing Demand for its Elite Castor Seed Varieties PR Newswire REHOVOT, Israel, March 5, 2024 The new agreements...

PeriodChangeChange %OpenHighLowAvg. Daily VolVWAP
1-0.0553-6.867006084690.80530.80820.7202886640.75316142CS
4-0.1245-14.23670668950.87451.040.72021646050.88291048CS
12-0.21-21.8750.961.040.6951874050.87481531CS
260.15250.61.040.45021687620.78246257CS
520.115.38461538460.651.440.45021973680.89886678CS
156-3.72-83.22147651014.475.390.45022360301.985019CS
260-1.04-58.10055865921.7910.23860.45023355523.55812132CS

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EVGN Discussion

View Posts
midastouch017 midastouch017 1 week ago
Evogene Reports Receipt of Nasdaq Minimum Bid Price Notification

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evogene-reports-receipt-nasdaq-minimum-130000131.html

REHOVOT, Israel, March 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE: EVGN) (the "Company", "Evogene"), a leading computational biology company targeting to revolutionize life-science product discovery and development across multiple market segments, today reported that the Company received a letter (the "Letter") from the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC ("Nasdaq"), indicating that the Company is currently not in compliance with Nasdaq Rule 5550(a)(2), as the Company's closing bid price for its ordinary shares has been below $1.00 per share for the last 30 consecutive business days.
If the Company does not demonstrate compliance (with the bid price requirement or with any other listing requirements) prior to the end of the 180-day period ending September 16, 2024, the Nasdaq's staff will notify the Company that its ordinary shares will be subject to delisting.

It is noted that Evogene's continued listing on Nasdaq remains a key priority for the Company. Should the situation not resolve itself over the above-mentioned timeframe, the Company intends to consider other available options to cure the deficiency and regain compliance with the minimum bid requirement within the compliance period, including potentially approving a reverse share split among other alternatives.

The Letter from Nasdaq has no immediate effect on the Company's Nasdaq listing or the trading of its ordinary shares on Nasdaq, and during the aforementioned cure period, the Company's ordinary shares will continue to trade on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol "EVGN". It is further noted that the Letter from Nasdaq has no bearing on Evogene's listing on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, where its ordinary shares are traded under the ticker symbol "EVGN".
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midastouch017 midastouch017 1 week ago
Bayer AG and Lavie Bio Continue for Second Year of Biofungicides Validation Following Successful Lab and Greenhouse Testing

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bayer-ag-lavie-bio-continue-130000956.html

REHOVOT, Israel, March 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lavie Bio Ltd., a leading ag-biologicals company that develops microbiome-based, computational-driven bio-stimulant and bio-pesticide novel products and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), announced today that it is extending its joint validation trials for its biofungicides conducted by Bayer AG, a global leader in the agriculture industry, after successful first-year laboratory and greenhouse testing. The tests have demonstrated the efficacy of Lavie Bio's biofungicides in addressing devastating diseases that affect fruits and vegetables worldwide. Building on these positive outcomes, the companies are progressing to a second year of validation trials in field experiments.

"This is an important step in our open innovation strategy to bring new biological solutions to growers," said Benoit Hartmann, Head of Biologics at Bayer Crop Science. "Biofungicides are a real opportunity for innovation, and we are looking forward to the new solutions this partnership with Lavie Bio helps us deliver together."

"We are delighted with the consistently positive results we have observed in our experiments, which has led to the decision to extend the validation trials for another year in the field," said Amit Noam, CEO of Lavie Bio. "This not only highlights the immense business potential of our product and its meaningful impact on farmers worldwide but also reinforces our dedication to collaborative partnerships within the industry as we work together to deliver innovative solutions to the market."

The emergence of innovative ag biologicals, particularly biofungicides, provides a sustainable and responsible approach to disease management at a time when farmers are left with limited options to effectively address diseases that can pose a major threat to crop yield. These products demonstrate high efficacy in controlling oomycetes while minimizing environmental impact, thereby promoting sustainable agricultural practices.

Lavie Bio's commitment to refining its promising bio fungicides through joint validation trials with Bayer AG serves as a powerful testament to the company's development capabilities, leveraging its innovative BDD platform powered by Evogene's MicroBoost AI tech-engine.

About Lavie Bio Ltd.:

Lavie Bio, a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd., aims to improve food quality, sustainability, and agriculture productivity through the introduction of microbiome-based ag-biological products. Lavie Bio utilizes a proprietary computational predictive platform, the BDD platform, powered by Evogene's proprietary MicroBoost AI tech-engine, harnessing the power of big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced informatics, for the discovery, optimization and development of bio-stimulant and bio-pesticide products.

For more information, please visit www.lavie-bio.com.
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Invest-in-America Invest-in-America 1 month ago
EVGN: If their Weed Killers deal with BAYER doesn't SOAR soon, I'm gonna take a half-bottle of BAYER ASPIRIN to kill my HEADACHES today!!! DAMN-IT!!! BOUNCE you dead-cat!!!

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Invest-in-America Invest-in-America 1 month ago
EVGN: Look out!! The Israeli Fleet is opening FIRE!!!



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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
i used to write tickers dd in note books,ihub is better,i can come back 1 month or years and see what i said(good and bad) it was taking longer to find tickers in note books than it was to just re dd, ppl have asked why i am talking to myself or that i am pumping excessively, mostly just fact writing for my future reference and others, ihub isnt stocktwits we dont care who called what so they can get followers to charge $,we mostly just share info to help each other,ihub is great,love my bros and sisters
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PennyPusher786 PennyPusher786 1 month ago
You make good calls... I've seen that since 2021... Not in this one though. It's not worth making a buck off a nation who used the Nazi Genocide as a cover for their own genocide which happens in the modern day....
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PennyPusher786 PennyPusher786 1 month ago
PENNY PUSHER SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT:

Don't listen to or support the genociders in Israel who gaslight the world into accepting them as the darling child of the world while they steal your tax dollars and use it to kill babies children, women, men, doctors, journalists, harvesting organs from dead victims, desecration of GRAVES, blowing up hospitals, universities, journalism buildings... The world is waking up... Don't invest in genocide, have some principles people... don't just invest blindly to make a profit off bloodshed... Fraud and deception have never been more evident than today... pay attention, the signs are obvious... even those who support them are clearly evil, stubborn, bitter and just lost...




Source: PR Newswire (US)

REHOVOT, Israel, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company targeting to revolutionize life-science product discovery and development across multiple market segments, today provides an update to its investors and stakeholders amidst the ongoing security situation in Israel.

"In these trying times, we extend our heartfelt condolences to those directly and indirectly affected by the recent events in Israel," said Ofer Haviv, CEO of Evogene. "Despite the challenges, Evogene and its subsidiaries remain steadfast in their commitment to innovation and progress. Our focus and strategy remain stable, and our dedicated team works diligently to fulfill our missions for 2023 and pave the way for 2024. We are grateful for the unwavering support from our partners and stakeholders. We remain attentive and monitor our position and plans as the situation evolves."

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Invest-in-America Invest-in-America 1 month ago
EVGN: Let's get ready to Short-SQUEEZE the FLUCK out of this puppy!!! (Our men need WEED-KILLERS!!!)

"Do ya mean something like THIS --- Invest-In-America, you iHub Clown???!!!"
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
GOLDEN CROSS,now parabolic above .85(daily),death hour close enough to over(5 more min)
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
debt/equity .07 green(gross profit positive),no p/e rating(no net profit),eps q/q up 49%,sales up 708%,profiting soon must be why tutes buying and once over 1,more tutes/hedge funds ect. can buy above their 1 minimum,above $1 it ran to $10 in 2021(been dropping ever since)
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
relative buying vol. up 63Xs ave,accumulation at open -.0043,now .21,ppl buying and holding
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
buck big res.,1.20,52week high 1.44,mental # 1.50,1.75,big 2,target 3.62
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
death hour over @ 11:30,moving up before that would be a great sign of strength and usually leads to multi vol surges all day and into close
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
5 new tutes,institutional up 500% this Q,tutes move 90% of mkt,retail is drop in bucket
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
pest. news yesterday unfound, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/syngenta-and-lavie-bio-announce-partnership-to-discover-and-develop-novel-bio-insecticide-302065937.html ,today herbicide with BAYER and that name gets em noticed
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81vette 81vette 1 month ago
vwap .8875,sma50(1min) .8677,1st res/supp bounce areas,death hour in 15min.
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Invest-in-America Invest-in-America 1 month ago
EVGN: GO-GO-GO-ISRAEL!!! (O.K., so I'm a hypocrite!! Call the POLICE!!! Heck, what better way to get back at ISRAEL than to make BANK off of their immoral SOULS!!!)
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Invest-in-America Invest-in-America 1 month ago
EVGN: Exploiting latest AI, EVGN cements deal with BAYER to hybridize "Venus-Fly-Trap" & "Killer-Tomatoes" species to destroy WEEDS across the Globe!!!
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agplenus-announces-licensing--collaboration-agreement-with-bayer-to-develop-a-new-sustainable-weed-control-solution-302067303.html
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Invest-in-America Invest-in-America 1 month ago
EVGN: Deal with BAYER to kill the weeds of Planet Earth!!! LOVE-IT!!
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Monksdream Monksdream 5 months ago
EVGN new 52 week low
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Monksdream Monksdream 6 months ago
EVGN new 52 week low
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Monksdream Monksdream 6 months ago
EVGN new 52 week low
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midastouch017 midastouch017 6 months ago
Casterra Delivers First Shipment of Castor Seeds to Africa

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/casterra-delivers-first-shipment-castor-110000179.html

This first shipment, valued at approximately US$1 million, is part of a framework agreement with a world-leading oil and gas company

REHOVOT, Israel, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Casterra Ag Ltd. ("Casterra"), an integrated castor cultivation solution company and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. ("Evogene") (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), today announced the shipment of its first batch of high-yield, high-oil castor seeds from Brazil and Zambia to its destination in Africa. This shipment, valued at US$1 million, is the first step in meeting US$11.3M purchase orders from a world-leading oil and gas company, which Casterra received in the second quarter of 2023.

Casterra's premium castor seeds are developed using Evogene's GeneRator AI tech-engine and undergo rigorous testing to meet industry standards. These seeds exhibit high-level cleanliness, successfully passed phytosanitary inspection, and have a germination percentage rate of 90%, exceeding the industry acceptance criteria benchmark.

Casterra CEO Eyal Ronen said: "We are pleased to initiate shipments under this framework agreement with a leading oil and gas company, demonstrating the feasibility of shipping large amounts of seeds, even across continents. Casterra anticipates it will supply the remainder of these seed's orders in the coming months."

About Casterra Ag Ltd.:
Casterra is engaged in developing and commercializing high-yielding castor bean seeds as a cost-competitive, sustainable, second-generation feedstock for the growing biofuel market. It has built its castor genetic assets based on a broad collection of over 300 castor lines from over 40 different geographic and climatic regions. As part of its development process, Casterra applies advanced breeding methods utilizing Evogene's GeneRator AI tech-engine, enabling the use of cutting-edge plant genomics tools and agro-technique expertise to enable efficient and sustainable industrial-scale production of the castor bean.

For more information, please visit http://www.casterra.co
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midastouch017 midastouch017 8 months ago
Evogene Schedules Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Release & Conference Call for August 17, 2023

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evogene-schedules-second-quarter-2023-110000976.html

Conference call scheduled for 9:00 AM ET

REHOVOT, Israel, Aug. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN)(TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company targeting to revolutionize life-science product discovery and development across multiple market segments, announced today that it will release its financial results for the second quarter of 2023, on Thursday, August 17, 2023.

Later that day, Company management will host a conference call to discuss the results at 9:00 AM Eastern Time (4:00 PM Israel time).

To join the conference call, please use the following numbers: +1-888-281-1167 toll-free from the United States or +972-3-918-0609 internationally. You can also find access details for the call at https://evogene.com/investor-relations/presentations-and-webcasts/

A replay of the conference call will be available approximately two hours following the completion of the call. To access the replay, please dial +1-888-326-9310 toll-free from the United States or +972-3-925-5901 internationally. The telephone replay will be accessible for three days, but an archive of the webcast will be available from the webcast link for the following twelve months.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 8 months ago
Biomica Announces Interim Positive Results from Pre-Clinical Studies in its Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Program




The results demonstrate the efficacy of Biomica's live bacterial consortia, BMC426 and BMC427, for the treatment of IBS

REHOVOT, Israel, July 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Biomica Ltd., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative microbiome-based therapeutics and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), reported today interim positive results from pre-clinical studies in its IBS program. The pre-clinical work was performed in collaboration with the lab of Prof. Kara Gross Margolis, Associate Director for Clinical and Translational Research for the New York University Pain Research Center and an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Pathobiology in the NYU College of Dentistry and the Department of Pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In these studies, Biomica tested two candidate therapeutic consortia of live bacterial strains, BMC426 and BMC427. Treatment with these drug candidates effectively reduced visceral pain, a major symptom of IBS.


Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is a chronic digestive system disorder estimated to affect 4.1% of the worldwide population[1]. IBS-affected individuals suffer from abdominal pain, bloating, and abnormal bowel movements; that often affect their daily functioning and quality of life. Current standard therapies for IBS are limited, particularly in relation to IBS-associated abdominal pain. Studies have pointed to associations between alterations in the gut microbiome and IBS, suggesting microbiome involvement in developing IBS symptoms[2].

BMC426 and BMC427 were designed based on their functional capabilities, utilizing data collected from IBS patients through research conducted at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill by Prof. Yehuda Ringel, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Biomica. The data was analyzed in silico using Biomica's PRISM system, a proprietary computational platform powered by Evogene's MicroBoost AI tech-engine. Numerous functional capabilities of BMC426 and BMC427 have been successfully validated in relevant in-vitro models.

Today, Biomica is announcing positive results observed in its in-vivo pre-clinical work, which aimed to evaluate the potential of BMC426 and BMC427 in treating IBS. The results revealed that animals treated with either BMC426 or BMC427 displayed significantly lower levels of visceral sensitivity compared to the placebo-treated group. The study design and initial results will be presented in an oral presentation at the NeuroGASTRO conference of the European Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (ESNM) in September 2023.

These results lay the foundation for Biomica's advancement of its IBS therapeutics development program. In the coming year, Biomica plans to explore additional parameters related to pain reduction and the alleviation of other IBS symptoms, building upon these promising pre-clinical findings.

Prof. Kara Gross Margolis said: "The results of this study are incredibly exciting as they are the first to show that BMC426 or BMC427 may be helpful in the treatment of visceral pain in IBS and other gastrointestinal disorders, that are highly common with few effective therapies."

"We express our sincere gratitude to Prof. Kara Gross Margolis and her team at NYU, as their involvement has been instrumental in the promising results achieved in these in-vivo pre-clinical studies," said Prof. Yehuda Ringel. "By leveraging our innovative computational approach, which harnesses big data and high-resolution microbiome analysis to identify the optimal microbes for our product, we are poised to introduce a promising, microbiome-targeted therapy for this chronic and debilitating condition. We eagerly look forward to sharing further updates on the progress of this program as we continue our journey forward."

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32294476/
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6039952/

About Biomica's IBS therapeutic candidates: BMC426 and BMC427

BMC426 and BMC427, which are Live Bacterial Products (LBPs), are rationally designed consortia designed to restore specific functionality to a microbial community with individually selected, cultured bacteria. BMC426 and BMC427 are comprised of bacterial strains selected for their multiple desired functions to achieve maximal functional activity with only 4 or 5 bacterial strains, respectively. These LBP's are aimed to result in robust metabolic and immune modulation, and affect IBS through several underlying and complementary modes of action.

About PRISM:

PRISM enables high-resolution microbiome computational analysis with specific emphasis on the functional aspects of the microbiome, host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, supporting a mechanistic approach to strains selection and providing the basis for Biomica's rational design of therapeutic live bacterial consortia.

About Biomica Ltd.:

Biomica is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative microbiome-based therapeutics utilizing PRISM system, a proprietary computational platform powered by Evogene's MicroBoost AI tech-engine. licensed from Evogene. Biomica aims to identify and characterize disease-related microbiome entities and to develop novel therapeutics based on these understandings. The company is focused on the development of therapies for antibiotic resistant bacteria, immuno-oncology, and microbiome-related gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. Biomica is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE: EVGN).

For more information, please visit www.biomicamed.com.

About Evogene Ltd.:

Evogene (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company aiming to revolutionize the development of life-science-based products by utilizing cutting-edge technologies to increase the probability of success while reducing development time and cost. Evogene established three unique tech-engines - MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI, and GeneRator AI – leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and incorporating deep multidisciplinary understanding in life sciences. Each tech-engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI).

Evogene uses its tech-engines to develop products through subsidiaries and strategic partnerships. Evogene's subsidiaries currently utilize the tech-engines to develop human microbiome-based therapeutics by Biomica, ag-biologicals by Lavie Bio, ag-chemicals by AgPlenus, medical cannabis products by Canonic and castor varieties, for the biofuel and other industries, by Casterra.

For more information, please visit www.evogene.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" relating to future events. These statements may be identified by words such as "will", "may", "could", "expects", "intends", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "scheduled", "estimates", "demonstrates", or words of similar meaning. For example, Evogene and Biomica are using forward-looking statements in this press release when they discuss Biomica's products potential to bring a new form of therapy for chronic and devastating condition, the drug candidates' ability to reduce visceral pain in IBS and other gastrointestinal disorders, and the progress of the pre-clinical trials. Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions, describe opinions about future events, and involve certain risks and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore, actual future results, performance or achievements of Evogene and its subsidiaries may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of Evogene and its subsidiaries, including, without limitation, those risk factors contained in Evogene's reports filed with applicable securities authorities. Evogene and its subsidiaries disclaim any obligation or commitment to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments or changes in expectations, estimates, projections, and assumptions.

Contacts
Rachel Pomerantz Gerber
Head of Investor Relations at Evogene
rachel.pomerantz@evogene.com
Tel: +972-8-9311901

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1974949/Biomica.jpg
Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1947468/Evogene.jpg

Evogene logo
Evogene logo
Cision
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/biomica-announces-interim-positive-results-from-pre-clinical-studies-in-its-irritable-bowel-syndrome-ibs-program-301880807.html

SOURCE Biomica Ltd.


GlobeNewswire
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midastouch017 midastouch017 8 months ago
Evogene Announces Pricing of US$8,500,000 Registered Direct Offering

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evogene-announces-pricing-us-8-121500150.html

REHOVOT, Israel, July 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. ("Evogene") (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company aiming to revolutionize life-science-based product discovery and development utilizing cutting-edge computational biology technologies across multiple market segments, today announced it has entered into securities purchase agreements with institutional investors (including SilverArc Capital Management, Altium Capital Management, LP and CVI Investments, Inc.) for the purchase and sale of 8,500,000 ordinary shares in a registered direct offering at a purchase price of $1.00 per ordinary share (the "offering").

The closing of the offering is expected to occur on or about July 19, 2023, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The gross proceeds from the offering are expected to be approximately $8,500,000 before deducting placement agent fees and other offering expenses. Evogene intends to use the net proceeds of this offering to further develop its and its subsidiaries' product pipelines, to further enhance and expand its CPB (Computational Predictive Biology) platform and technological engines and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners is acting as sole placement agent for the offering.

The ordinary shares will be issued in a registered direct offering pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement on Form F-3 (File No. 333-253300) previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and was declared effective by the SEC on March 3, 2021. A prospectus supplement describing the terms of the proposed registered direct offering will be filed with the SEC and once filed, will be available on the SEC's website located at http://www.sec.gov. Electronic copies of the prospectus supplement may be obtained, when available, from A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners, 590 Madison Avenue, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10022, or by telephone at (212) 624-2060, or by email at prospectus@allianceg.com.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About Evogene Ltd.

Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to revolutionize the development of life-science-based products by utilizing cutting-edge technologies to increase the probability of success while reducing development time and cost.

Evogene established three unique tech-engines - MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI and GeneRator AI. Each tech-engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI).

Evogene uses its tech-engines to develop products through strategic partnerships and collaborations, and its five subsidiaries include:

Biomica Ltd. (www.biomicamed.com) developing and advancing novel microbiome-based therapeutics to treat human disorders powered by MicroBoost AI;

Lavie Bio Ltd. (www.lavie-bio.com) developing and commercially advancing microbiome-based ag-biologicals powered by MicroBoost AI;

AgPlenus Ltd. (www.agplenus.com) developing next-generation ag chemicals for effective and sustainable crop protection powered by ChemPass AI;

Canonic Ltd. (www.canonicbio.com) developing medical cannabis products based on decoding plant genetics for optimized therapeutic effect powered by GeneRator AI; and

Casterra Ag Ltd. (www.casterra.co) developing and marketing superior castor seed varieties producing high yield and high-grade oil content on an industrial scale for the biofuel and other industries powered by GeneRator AI.

For more information, please visit www.evogene.com
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midastouch017 midastouch017 8 months ago
Lavie Bio Announces Licensing Agreement for Bio-Fungicides with Corteva Agriscience

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lavie-bio-announces-licensing-agreement-113000718.html

Corteva to receive exclusive rights to further develop and commercialize Lavie Bio's lead product candidates for fruit rot and powdery mildew fungicide biologicals

REHOVOT, Israel, July 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Lavie Bio Ltd., a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), and a leading ag-biologicals company that develops microbiome-based, computational driven bio-stimulant and bio-pesticide novel products, announced today a licensing agreement with Corteva Inc. (NYSE: CTVA), a leading ag innovation company. The agreement grants Corteva exclusive rights to further develop and commercialize the lead bio-fungicide product candidates targeting fruit rots and powdery mildew, which were discovered and developed by Lavie Bio. The agreement comes after two years of independent field validation conducted by both companies.

Fruit rots and powdery mildew, two destructive diseases affecting vineyards, fruits, and vegetables, have resulted in annual losses estimated at billions of dollars globally. Fruit rot pathogens, such as Botrytis, can cause damage upon contact with infected plant material. Meanwhile, powdery mildew spreads swiftly between plants via wind-dispersed spores.

The agreement is part of Lavie Bio's strategy to cooperate with the world's leading companies to allow the products it develops to reach farmers worldwide and Corteva, with its proven agbiological capabilities, can leverage Lavie Bio's product candidates toward commercial success. This collaboration demonstrates both companies' commitment to providing farmers with environmentally friendly, sustainable tools with proven effectiveness.

"Our licensing agreement solidifies the collaboration between both companies, leveraging Corteva's impressive scale-up capabilities and market leadership, in conjunction with Lavie Bio's distinctive discovery expertise powered by Evogene's MicroBoost AI tech-engine and comprehensive product development capabilities" said Amit Noam, CEO of Lavie Bio. "This agreement not only highlights Lavie Bio's technological capabilities but also enables us to swiftly introduce groundbreaking ag-biological solutions that benefit farmers, consumers, and the environment. "

"When you have a world-class R&D program, like we do at Corteva Agriscience, it allows you to move fast and bring on new opportunities that will help farmers meet the demands of an ever-changing food system," said Sam Eathington, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology and Digital Officer, Corteva Agriscience. "This agreement gives us yet another avenue to provide better solutions to farmers now, and in the future."

About Lavie Bio Ltd.
Lavie Bio, a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd., aims to improve food quality, sustainability, and agriculture productivity by introducing microbiome-based ag-biological products. Lavie Bio utilizes a proprietary computational predictive platform, the BDD platform, powered by Evogene's proprietary MicroBoost AI tech-engine, harnessing the power of big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced informatics for the discovery, optimization and development of bio-stimulant and bio-pesticide products.
For more information, please visit www.lavie-bio.com.

About Evogene Ltd.
Evogene (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company aiming to revolutionize the development of life-science-based products by utilizing cutting-edge technologies to increase the probability of success while reducing development time and cost. Evogene established three unique tech-engines – MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI and GeneRator AI – leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and incorporating deep multidisciplinary understanding in life sciences. Each tech-engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI). Evogene uses its tech-engines to develop products through subsidiaries and strategic partnerships. Evogene's subsidiaries currently utilize the tech-engines to develop human microbiome-based therapeutics by Biomica, ag-biologicals by Lavie Bio, ag-chemicals by AgPlenus, medical cannabis products by Canonic and castor varieties, for the biofuel and other industries, by Casterra.
For more information, please visit www.evogene.com.

About Corteva
Corteva, Inc. (NYSE: CTVA) is a publicly traded, global pure-play agriculture company that combines industry-leading innovation, high-touch customer engagement and operational execution to profitably deliver solutions for the world's most pressing agriculture challenges. Corteva generates advantaged market preference through its unique distribution strategy, together with its balanced and globally diverse mix of seed, crop protection, and digital products and services. With some of the most recognized brands in agriculture and a technology pipeline well positioned to drive growth, the company is committed to maximizing productivity for farmers, while working with stakeholders throughout the food system as it fulfills its promise to enrich the lives of those who produce and those who consume, ensuring progress for generations to come. More information can be found at www.corteva.com.

Follow Corteva on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 9 months ago
AgPlenus Appoints Dr. Adrian Percy to Its Board of Directors

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/agplenus-appoints-dr-adrian-percy-110000874.html

REHOVOT, Israel, July 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- AgPlenus Ltd., an innovative company designing novel and safe crop protection products allowing food security for a rapidly growing world population, and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Adrian Percy to its board of directors. Dr. Percy, who also serves as a member of Evogene Ltd.'s board of directors since March 2019, brings a wealth of expertise and a deep commitment to advancing environmentally friendly agricultural technologies.

With over 25 years of experience in the agricultural industry, Dr. Adrian Percy strongly advocates for environmentally friendly agricultural and food technologies to support global food supply and security. He has held senior management positions, including Head of Research & Development for Bayer's Crop Science division, overseeing crop protection, seeds, traits, and regulatory affairs. Dr. Percy's academic background includes a bachelor's degree in pharmacology from the University of Liverpool, a Master's degree in Toxicology, and a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham. His expertise and passion make him a valuable addition to AgPlenus' board of directors.

Ofer Haviv, Chairman of AgPlenus, expressed his excitement: "We are delighted to welcome Dr. Adrian Percy to AgPlenus' board of directors. His extensive agricultural industry experience and passion for developing environmentally sustainable solutions align perfectly with our company's vision. Dr. Percy's guidance and strategic insights will be invaluable as we continue to innovate and deliver effective crop protection products that address the challenges farmers worldwide face."

Dr. Adrian Percy commented regarding his appointment, "I am honored to join AgPlenus' board of directors and contribute to developing sustainable crop protection solutions. AgPlenus' commitment to leveraging computational biology and chemistry aligns with my vision for a more sustainable future in agriculture. I look forward to working closely with the board and management team to drive innovation and positively impact the industry."

About AgPlenus Ltd.

AgPlenus is a platform company designing novel and safe crop protection products. At AgPlenus, we direct and accelerate the development of target-based novel crop protection products, utilizing a revolutionary tech-engine, based on AI combined with a deep understanding of biology and chemistry. By employing our target-based approach, we are able to minimize risks and enhance effectiveness, enabling us to fulfill our commitment to ensuring food security by overcoming global pesticide resistance. AgPlenus has ongoing collaborations with industry leaders such as Corteva. AgPlenus is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd.

For more information, please visit www.agplenus.com

About Evogene Ltd.:

Evogene (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company aiming to revolutionize the development of life-science-based products by utilizing cutting-edge technologies to increase the probability of success while reducing development time and cost. Evogene established three unique tech-engines - MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI, and GeneRator AI – leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and incorporating deep multidisciplinary understanding in life sciences. Each tech-engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI).

Evogene uses its tech-engines to develop products through subsidiaries and strategic partnerships. Evogene's subsidiaries currently utilize the tech-engines to develop human microbiome-based therapeutics by Biomica, ag-biologicals by Lavie Bio, ag-chemicals by AgPlenus, medical cannabis products by Canonic and castor varieties, for the biofuel and other industries, by Casterra.

For more information, please visit www.evogene.com

Contacts

Rachel Pomerantz Gerber
Head of Investor Relations at Evogene
rachel.pomerantz@evogene.com
Tel: +972-8-9311901

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Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1334691/AgPlenus.jpg

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Cision
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agplenus-appoints-dr-adrian-percy-to-its-board-of-directors-301875356.html

SOURCE AgPlenus Ltd.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 9 months ago
Casterra Announces Additional $2.2 Million of Purchase Orders to Supply Castor Seeds for New African Territories

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/casterra-announces-additional-2-2-110000172.html

Casterra will supply the castor seeds in 2023 for the cultivation of castor plants to produce oil for sustainable biofuel

REHOVOT, Israel, July 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Casterra Ag Ltd. ("Casterra"), an integrated castor cultivation solution company and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. ("Evogene") (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), today announced additional $2.2 million of purchase orders to supply castor seeds during 2023, for new African territories. Casterra's castor seeds, developed with Evogene's GeneRator AI Tech Engine, will be used to grow Castor to produce oil for sustainable biofuel. Casterra's high-yield, high-oil castor seed varieties are optimized for biofuel production to support the growing sustainable energy market.

The biodiesel market is estimated at ~$92 billion in 2021, which is about 9% of the overall global diesel market and is expected to reach ~$190 billion by 20301. In current industry practice, biodiesel is based on a mix of about 93-95% fossil oil and 5-7% non-fossil oil from plants or other sources. The demand for non-fossil oil for biodiesel could increase either by growth of the biodiesel segment in the regular diesel market and/or by an increase in the percentage of non-fossil used in the biodiesel mix. Biofuels offer significant advantages over conventional petrochemical fuels, presenting a renewable and biodegradable alternative with substantially lower negative environmental impact.

Castor emerges as a standout non-fossil oil candidate due to its carbon-neutral properties, with emissions during combustion closely matching the carbon dioxide absorbed during the growth of castor plants. Furthermore, the castor plant can be cultivated on marginal lands, in semi-arid to arid conditions, and it does not compete on ground with edible crops.

Casterra, as Evogene's subsidiary, spearheads the development of proprietary high-yield castor varieties leveraging the company's cutting-edge computational biology technologies. By utilizing Evogene's GeneRator AI tech engine and incorporating advanced computational AI capabilities and proprietary plant genomic databases.

"We are thrilled to receive additional significant purchase orders for our unique castor seed, which confirms our value proposition for the sustainable biofuel industry," expressed Eyal Ronen, Chief Executive Officer of Casterra. "As we eagerly hope to secure more orders in the future, this accomplishment reinforces our ongoing commitment to delivering exceptional, eco-friendly solutions to meet the ever-growing global demand for renewable energy. After more than a decade of hard work and an investment of tens of millions of dollars in developing our unique varieties and underlying technology, we are proud that Casterra is now a trusted and reliable supplier in this growing market."

About Casterra Ag Ltd.:
Casterra is engaged in developing and commercializing high-yielding castor bean seeds as a cost-competitive, sustainable, second-generation feedstock for the growing biofuel market. It has built its castor genetic assets based on a broad collection of over 300 castor lines from over 40 different geographic and climatic regions. As part of its development process, Casterra applies advanced breeding methods utilizing Evogene's Generator AI tech engine, enabling the use of cutting-edge plant genomics tools and agro-technique expertise to enable efficient and sustainable industrial-scale production of the castor bean.

For more information, please visit http://www.casterra.co

About Evogene Ltd.:
Evogene (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company aiming to revolutionize the development of life-science-based products by utilizing cutting-edge technologies to increase the probability of success while reducing development time and cost. Evogene established three unique tech engines - MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI, and GeneRator AI – leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and incorporating deep multidisciplinary understanding in life sciences. Each tech engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI).

Evogene uses its tech engines to develop products through subsidiaries and strategic partnerships. Evogene's subsidiaries currently utilize the tech engines to develop human microbiome-based therapeutics by Biomica, ag-biologicals by Lavie Bio, ag-chemicals by AgPlenus, medical cannabis products by Canonic and castor varieties, for the biofuel and other industries, by Casterra.

For more information, please visit www.evogene.com

Forward-Looking Statements:
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" relating to future events. These statements may be identified by words such as "will", "may", "could", "expects", "intends", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "scheduled", "estimates", "demonstrates", or words of similar meaning. For example, Evogene and Casterra are using forward-looking statements in this press release when they discuss the expected timing of delivery of Casterra's seeds, estimated growth in the biodiesel markets, Casterra's ability to meet demand for biodiesel, biofuels' advantages over conventional petrochemical fuels, potential sources for an increase in demand for plant oil used in biodiesel and the potential for future orders of Casterra's seeds. Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions, describe opinions about future events, and involve certain risks and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore, actual future results, performance or achievements of Evogene and its subsidiaries may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of Evogene and its subsidiaries, including, without limitation, those risk factors contained in Evogene's reports filed with applicable securities authorities. Evogene and its subsidiaries disclaim any obligation or commitment to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments or changes in expectations, estimates, projections, and assumptions.

Contacts
Rachel Pomerantz Gerber
Head of Investor Relations at Evogene
rachel.pomerantz@evogene.com
Tel: +972-8-9311901

1 Biodiesel Market (By Feedstock: Vegetable Oil, Animal Fats; By Application: Fuel, Power Generation, Others; By Production Process: Alcohol Trans-Esterification, Hydro-Heating) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Regional Outlook, and Forecast 2022-2030. https://www.precedenceresearch.com/biodiesel-market

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1947468/Evogene.jpg
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Casterra Logo
Casterra Logo
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/casterra-announces-additional-2-2-million-of-purchase-orders-to-supply-castor-seeds-for-new-african-territories-301868785.html

SOURCE Casterra Ag Ltd.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 9 months ago
Conclusion

Pessimists might argue that the reason for today’s sub $1 valuation, and trading at or below cash, is the expectation that the company will spend down its money without an exit to boost its capital. Recent news: Casterra’s $9m sale of seeds, $10m investment in Biomica, $10m SAFE investment in Lavie Bio, and ~$1.5m Horizon grant, as well as two revenue generating subsidiaries means that Evogene’s cash is actually increasing, and this risk today, is becoming increasingly remote.

From a sum-of-parts perspective, Evogene is likely worth many multiples of its market valuation today. From a conservative perspective, we calculate it is worth well above $5, without ascribing any value to Evogene’s technology. This represents at least a 6X upside from today’s share price.

When this will eventually come, nobody knows, but the recent news at Casterra represents a very significant catalyst and ultimately value is hard to keep locked up forever.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 9 months ago
Evogene - A Company With Valuable Assets Trading At Zero Enterprise Value

By Kate Hayden

Thursday, June 22, 2023 9:17 AM EDT

Introduction

Evogene is a Nasdaq and Tel Aviv listed company under the ticker EVGN. The company is both an agri-tech (agricultural technology) and bio-tech company with a computational predictive biological platform technology, which supports three AI tech-engines (GeneRator AI, ChemPass AI & MicroBoost AI). The technology is leveraged to five relatively early-stage subsidiaries: three of which have reached the commercialization phase and have sales.

There have been a number of articles on TalkMarkets describing the overall company and its structure, (see here and here), as well as some excellently detailed analysis and overview on Evogene and each of its subsidiaries by investor, Stephen Goldman on Seeking Alpha. This article will focus primarily on the valuation of the business, without going into detail into what those subsidiaries actually do.

The company has a market cap of around $30 million (at a share price of $0.72), and has been trading at around those same levels since mid 2022, following a very sharp 90%+ fall from its peak of around $9.50 in February 2021. At the same time, the company had $29 million in consolidated cash as of Q1-end*.

*As a side note, we note this is today a conservative estimate of cash, since following Q1, Evogene received a $10 million investment in Biomica; an EU grant of over $1 million to develop drought resistant crops; revenues from Lavie Bio’s seed treatment which peaks in spring-time, and is set to receive a further $9 million in the near-term from an oil giant for castor seeds for biofuel, less ongoing cash burn.

The company was a key holding in Cathie Wood’s ARK Genomic Revolution ETF fund (ARKG) back in 2021. However, as ARK’s funds grew significantly, ARK exited most of their smaller holdings including Evogene, and combined with the 2021-2022 market crash, the company has since taken the hit to its share price, despite prospects significantly improving versus its position in 2021-2022.

Today, with effectively zero (or lower) enterprise value, when purchasing the shares, investors today are basically buying that same amount in cash, getting all the AI technology assets contained within the company and the value in the subsidiaries for free.

This is extremely pessimistic from the markets perspective.

Valuation of the subsidiaries

For one, the subsidiaries do have real value, ascribed by external investment from professional funds. Two of the subsidiaries have seen recent venture capital (VC) investment from serious institutions, providing external valuation.

Biomica (Evogene’s early stage bio-tech company focused on the human microbiome) of which 76% is now held by Evogene, saw an investment of $10 million, at a valuation of $50 million by Chinese VC, Shanghai Healthcare Capital, implying a value of $38 million to Evogene. This itself is above the market valuation of Evogene.

Lavie Bio of which Evogene currently owns 70% and Corteva (NYSE: CTVA) owns the balance, is an early-stage agri-tech company which already has growing sales. They closed a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) investment round at the end of last year bringing in $10 million from Israel Chemicals (NYSE: ICL). While SAFE investments mean valuation, and ownership adjustments, are not fixed until a later date, we do not believe the future round will be at a valuation below what Corteva paid in 2019 when the company was pre-sales: $27 million investment for 30%, implying a valuation of $90 million. Assuming ICL invests $10 million at a $90 million valuation, representing 11% ownership for ICL, Evogene’s ownership would drop to 63% of a $90 million company, whose value to Evogene would be $57 million - almost 2X Evogene’s valuation.

Canonic, a medical cannabis company of which Evogene holds 100%, has small but growing sales in Israel and has signed various royalty license agreements for its genetic varieties. It is noted that these license agreements are basically costless to Evogene and offer Canonic 100% gross margin. Given the weakness in the cannabis space globally, the company has stated they are looking for strategic alternatives for Canonic. While we can assume the valuation of the company is not significant given the unattractive cannabis market, given existing and growing sales plus its ability to gain royalties at almost 100% margin by licensing out existing IP - its genetic varieties - and its initial success in doing so, so far, the value is clearly above zero.

AgPlenus, developing crop protection products, of which Evogene owns 98%, is also at an early stage. In the conference call, the Evogene CEO stated that, “Major ag-chemical companies such as BASF, Bayer, Corteva, and Syngenta dominate today's crop protection industry. Still, they look to smaller ag-tech companies like AgPlenus to develop new minor molecule candidates, and AgPlenus is exploring partnerships with these major industry players.” The company is working with Corteva (also mentioned earlier as an owner and partner in Lavie Bio). The company has a pipeline, has solid partnerships and there is definitely strong potential here. Again the valuation is clearly above and probably well above zero.

Casterra, selling genetically advanced castor seeds for oil production of which Evogene holds 100%, is likely the subsidiary with the highest potential for significant value creation in the short-term. Casterra’s castor seed varieties used for bio-fuel production are designed to maximize water efficiency, provide drought resistance, and enable cultivation on marginal, non-arable land. Casterra offers a sustainable production process for growing biofuels, which oil majors can leverage.
This is why Casterra has attracted the attention of a major oil and gas company, looking to build its expertise in the biofuel sector in Africa. It just announced a significant $9 million initial purchase order for Castor seeds, following an earlier order in January (for an undisclosed amount). $9 million for an oil major, is clearly just a ‘drop in the ocean’ and the future potential is likely in the tens of millions, if not hundreds or more. Beyond that, we think the market itself is very interesting and will grow as the oil companies look to offer more sustainable forms of fuel, which castor grown fuel indeed is.

While Casterra has never raised external capital, it has no external valuation. However, 2023 revenues at Casterra will be relatively high versus all other subsidiaries in Evogene, and likely to further grow significantly in 2024 and 2025. We do not know what the gross margin on Casterra’s seed development is, but the majority of the value is tied up in the IP and genetic makeup of the seeds, and we should assume similar margins to other such biotech products, which would be in the 80-90% range. The operating expense footprint at the subsidiary is low with only a handful of employees, and we would estimate with 2023 revenues of over $9 million, the company is highly profitable.

There are other biofuel companies which we can use as a guide to valuation: according to Lake Street’s research on Evogene, CoverCress was purchased by Bayer and Chevron for over $200 million, and S&W-seeds has a biofuel JV valued at $150 million, investments made at both companies at the pre-revenue stage. We would assume that a revenue generating and profitable biofuel company, with very significant growth potential, should be at least within this range.

To summarize, while the market is valuing Evogene at its cash level at around $30 million, the conservative value of Evogene of its subsidiaries: net cash above $29m; Biomica at $38m; Lavie Bio at $57m; Canonic above $0m; AgPlanus well above $0m, and Casterra at least $100m; yields a value of well above $224 million, or well over $5 per share, versus around $0.73 today, and upside of well above 6X.

Evogene’s technology

And all that does not take into account Evogene’s technology. Evogene is a 20 year old company, and over that time primarily focused on research and development (R&D). In 2022, it spent $21 million in R&D, and extrapolating out to its founding, we can assume that over those two decades, Evogene has likely invested in the region of $400 million into R&D, developing the technology at its subsidiaries and into its own technology.

Evogene itself has a technology platform, which all its subsidiaries can leverage, called the Computational Predictive Biology platform or CPB, which it provides to its subsidiaries to direct and accelerate the discovery and development of their life-science-based products.

It consists of three artificial intelligence engines which use a large amount of either microbial, molecular or genetic data to train and ultimately discover new potential products and applications, called MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI, and GeneRator AI. More information on these engines can be found within Evogene’s presentations on its investor relations website.

There are no external metrics on which to value Evogene’s technology, but given the significant amount spent over decades, Evogene’s partnerships with leading ag-companies such as Corteva and ICL, and its revenue generating subsidiaries, there is clear value - and probably very significant value - here.

Conclusion

Pessimists might argue that the reason for today’s sub $1 valuation, and trading at or below cash, is the expectation that the company will spend down its money without an exit to boost its capital. Recent news: Casterra’s $9m sale of seeds, $10m investment in Biomica, $10m SAFE investment in Lavie Bio, and ~$1.5m Horizon grant, as well as two revenue generating subsidiaries means that Evogene’s cash is actually increasing, and this risk today, is becoming increasingly remote.

From a sum-of-parts perspective, Evogene is likely worth many multiples of its market valuation today. From a conservative perspective, we calculate it is worth well above $5, without ascribing any value to Evogene’s technology. This represents at least a 6X upside from today’s share price.

When this will eventually come, nobody knows, but the recent news at Casterra represents a very significant catalyst and ultimately value is hard to keep locked up forever.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 9 months ago
Casterra Signs a Framework Agreement with a World Leading Oil and Gas Company to Sell Its Castor Seeds for Sustainable Biofuel Production, with Initial Purchase Orders of $9.1 Million

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/casterra-signs-framework-agreement-world-110000850.html

Casterra is expected to deliver the initial orders of its proprietary castor seeds, developed using Evogene's GeneRator AI tech engine, during 2023

REHOVOT, Israel, June 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Casterra Ag Ltd. ("Casterra"), an integrated castor cultivation solution company and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. ("Evogene") (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), announced today that it signed a framework agreement to sell seeds of its proprietary castor varieties to one of the world's leading oil and gas companies for cultivation in specific African territories. Initial purchase orders, valued at an aggregate of $9.1 million, were received and the seeds are expected to be delivered during 2023. Casterra's high-yield, high-oil castor seed varieties are optimized for biofuel production to support the growing market of sustainable energy.

The biodiesel market is estimated at ~$92 billion in 2021, which is about 9% of the overall global diesel market and is expected to reach ~$190 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.33% from 2022-20301. In current industry practice, biodiesel is based on a mix of about 93-95% fossil oil and 5-7% non-fossil oil from plants or other sources. The demand for plant oil for biodiesel could increase either by growth of the biodiesel segment in the regular diesel market and/or by an increase in the percentage of plant oil used in the biodiesel mix. Based on Casterra's analysis, the purchase orders reported today can support the production of approximately 1.5%2 of the current world demand for non-fossil oil for biodiesel.

Biofuels offer significant advantages over conventional petrochemical fuels, presenting a renewable and biodegradable alternative with substantially lower negative environmental impact compared to other alternative fuel sources. Castor emerges as a standout biofuel candidate due to its carbon-neutral properties, with emissions during combustion closely matching the carbon dioxide absorbed during the growth of castor plants. Furthermore, the castor plant can be cultivated on marginal lands, in semi-arid to arid conditions, and it does not compete on ground with edible crops.

Casterra, as Evogene's subsidiary, spearheads the development of proprietary high-yield castor varieties leveraging the company's cutting-edge computational biology technologies. By utilizing Evogene's GeneRator AI tech engine and incorporating advanced computational AI capabilities and proprietary plant genomic databases, Casterra has unlocked the potential to produce castor varieties with exceptional yield and high oil content, setting new standards in the biofuel industry.

Eyal Ronen, CEO of Casterra stated: "We are thrilled with this business opportunity, which signifies a transformative step forward in the biofuel industry. By harnessing Evogene's cutting-edge computational biology technologies, Casterra is at the forefront of developing and supplying high-performance seeds for biofuel production that address the growing demand for cleaner and more sustainable energy. We believe that this achievement is just the beginning of a long-term relationship with our existing partner; together we are driving the future of sustainable energy solutions for the benefit of our planet."
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midastouch017 midastouch017 2 years ago
Evogene Reports Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evogene-reports-second-quarter-2022-110000318.html

Conference call and webcast: today, August 31, 2022, 9:00 am ET

REHOVOT, Israel, Aug. 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company targeting to revolutionize life-science product discovery and development across multiple market segments, announced today its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022.

Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are very pleased with the two recent important developments that have taken place at the Evogene group: namely, the strategic collaboration and $10 million investment by ICL, a leading global specialty minerals company, into our subsidiary, Lavie Bio; as well as the launch of the Phase I first in human clinical trial, by our subsidiary, Biomica."

"The strategic collaboration between ICL and Lavie Bio and $10 million investment, combines Lavie Bio's ag-biologicals expertise, built on Evogene's Microboost AI tech engine, with ICL's fertilizer experience, enabling the development of a pipeline of innovative bio-stimulant products for agriculture. Especially in a time of food scarcity, high prices, and macroeconomic uncertainty, Lavie Bio and ICL's shared vision is to enhance global food quality, agricultural sustainability, and increased productivity. ICL will join Corteva, a major U.S. agricultural chemical and seed company, as well as Evogene, as a new shareholder of Lavie Bio and I am very proud that these two agricultural giants have a strong interest in what Evogene has built."

"From Evogene's standpoint, this investment in our subsidiary Lavie Bio, is an additional key milestone that demonstrates the power of our business model, whereby we are leveraging the value of our tech engines through dedicated subsidiaries. It shows that our hard work in building, investing in and strengthening our subsidiaries, all of which are leveraging our underlying computational predictive biological tech engines, is the right strategy and bears fruit."

Continued Mr. Haviv, "The second important development was the launch by Biomica of its phase I clinical trial and the announcement that the first patient was dosed in its Phase I clinical trial for its microbiome-based immuno-oncology drug candidate, BMC128. The drug candidate is a consortium of microbes, which Biomica selected through a microbiome analysis via our MicroBoost AI tech engine."

"While Evogene has traditionally leveraged its platform and AI technology engines towards agriculture, Biomica is proof that we are uniquely positioned to play an important role in human health and is strong validation that our technology can be leveraged across multiple and massive industries."

"Finally, we continued to strengthen our management team, recently adding Eyal Ronen, as Executive Vice President of Business Development bringing us over 20 years of extensive business development experience with biotech companies. Eyal's focus is to create and bring us additional value by building new partnerships or forming new subsidiaries, leveraging our technology engines and expanding our activities into new areas. I strongly believe that Evogene has significant untapped potential in its technology engines, and Eyal will focus on realizing some of that value."

Mr. Haviv added, "Evogene today is at a key inflection point, whereby we are meeting critical milestones and the inherent value of our subsidiaries is becoming increasingly obvious. Evogene's goal in the near term, is to continue to bring high value-adding partners and investors at the subsidiary level, who understand and can value the potential from the products that our subsidiaries are developing. This we believe will demonstrate in a very public way, the significant untapped value contained within our activities."

"Our target is that each subsidiary will have its own financial resources to support its activities until its success, while we at Evogene, in addition to being a major shareholder, continue to play a major role in maintaining and building their competitive advantage through our tech-engines."

"In parallel, we are targeting and exploring the potential to establish new activities that can benefit from our technology. This is the main mission of our new EVP of Business Development, Eyal Ronen, and we are already starting to see some of his positive impact," concluded Mr. Haviv.

Consolidated Financial Results Summary

Cash position: Evogene continues to maintain a solid financial position for its activities with approximately $35.3 million in consolidated cash, cash related accounts and marketable securities as of June 30, 2022. Approximately $3.6 million of Evogene's consolidated cash is appropriated to its subsidiary, Lavie Bio. The Company does not have bank debt. It is noted that these amounts do not include the recent $10 million investment of ICL in Lavie Bio, which was fully received in August 2022 and will be reflected in the financial statements of the Company for the third quarter.

During the second quarter of 2022, the consolidated cash usage was approximately $9.3 million, or approximately $6.4 million, excluding Lavie Bio. Out of the $9.3 million, $1.7 million is a non-cash charge related to foreign exchange expenses due to US Dollar and New Israeli Shekel exchange rate differences and a decrease in the market value of marketable securities on Evogene's balance sheet.

As previously stated, Evogene's full year net cash burn rate, excluding exchange rate impacts in 2022, is expected to be in the range of $26-28 million including Lavie Bio and $18-20 million excluding Lavie Bio, which manages its own cash position.

Revenues: Revenues for the second quarter were $312 thousand, in comparison to $135 thousand in the same period the previous year. Revenues were primarily due to the initial sales of Lavie Bio's Thrivus product (previously branded as Result) and sales of Canonic products in the Israeli market.

R&D expenses for the quarter, which are reported net of non-refundable grants received, were $5.4 million, in comparison to $5.0 million in the same period the previous year. The increase in R&D expenses were primarily due to:

Biomica's ongoing phase I trial of its first-in-human proof-of-concept study in its immuno-oncology program; and
Lavie Bio's activities supporting the production and commercialization of its inoculant product;
Business Development expenses were approximately $1.0 million for the second quarter of 2022, in comparison to $0.7 million in the same period the previous year. The increase in the Business Development expenses was primarily due to recruitment of business development personnel supporting the commercialization activities of Evogene's subsidiaries.

General and Administrative expenses remained stable, and for the second quarter of 2022 were $1.7 million, in comparison to $1.8 million in the same period in the previous year.

Operating loss: Operating loss for the second quarter of 2022 was $8.0 million in comparison to $7.4 million in the same period in the previous year.

Financing expenses for the second quarter of 2022 were $1.7 million in comparison to financing income of $0.6 million in the same period in the previous year. The increase in financing expenses was mainly due to the US Dollar and New Israeli Shekel exchange rate differences between periods and a decrease in marketable securities value as mentioned above.

Net loss: The net loss for the second quarter of 2022 was $9.8 million in comparison to a net loss of $6.9 million in the same period in the previous year. The increase in net loss was mainly due to the financing expenses as described above.

Conference Call & Webcast Details:

Date: August 31, 2022

Time: 9:00 am ET; 16:00 Israel time

Dial-in numbers:1-888-281-1167 toll free from the United States, or +972-3-918-0609 internationally

Webcast & Presentation link available at:

https://www.evogene.com/investor-relations/presentations-and-webcasts/

The Company's investor presentation can be viewed at the above link, which is in the investor relations section of the company website.

Replay Information: A replay of the conference call will be available approximately two hours following the completion of the call.

To access the replay, please dial 1-888-326-9310 toll free from the United States, or +972-3-925-5901 internationally. The replay will be accessible following the call for three days. An archive of the webcast will be available on the Company's website

About Evogene Ltd.:
Evogene (NASDAQ: EVGN, TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company aiming to revolutionize the development of life-science based products by utilizing cutting edge technologies to increase probability of success while reducing development time and cost. Evogene established three unique technological engines – MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI and GeneRator AI – leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and incorporating deep multidisciplinary understanding in life sciences. Each technological engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI). Evogene uses its technological engines to develop products through subsidiaries and with strategic partners. Currently, Evogene's main subsidiaries utilize the technological engines to develop human microbiome-based therapeutics by Biomica Ltd., medical cannabis products by Canonic Ltd., ag-chemicals by Ag Plenus Ltd. and ag-biologicals by Lavie Bio Ltd. For more information, please visit: www.evogene.com.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 2 years ago
ICL and Lavie Bio Enter Strategic Collaboration to Develop Novel Bio-Stimulant Products

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/icl-lavie-bio-enter-strategic-203000004.html

ICL to invest $10 million in Lavie Bio

TEL AVIV, Israel, August 16, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ICL (NYSE: ICL) (TASE: ICL), a leading global specialty minerals company, and Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company focused on revolutionizing product discovery and development in multiple life-science based industries, announced today a multi-year, strategic, collaboration agreement between ICL and Lavie Bio Ltd., a subsidiary of Evogene.

Lavie Bio is a leading ag-biologicals company focusing on improving food quality, sustainability and agriculture productivity through the introduction of microbiome-based products. Lavie Bio’s unique approach uses Evogene’s tech engine MicroBoost AI, leveraging big-data, advanced artificial intelligence (AI), in combination with a deep understanding of biology.

As part of the collaboration, ICL will make a $10 million investment in Lavie Bio under a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity). The investment will be made via ICL Planet Startup Hub, which is the platform ICL uses to invest in and collaborate with innovative companies in the foodTech and agriTech domains.

The collaboration will focus on developing novel bio-stimulant products to enrich fertilizer efficiency. Combining Lavie Bio's ag-biologicals expertise and cutting-edge technology with ICL's advanced knowledge of fertilizer use and farmers’ needs is aimed to facilitate the development of new and innovative products for the agriculture industry.

Ag-biologicals are externally applied products derived from natural, biological sources, including microbials, macrobials, biochemicals and minerals, and used to optimize overall plant and soil health. Ag-biological products include bio-stimulants, for maximizing plant yield, quality and durability, as well as bio-pesticides, for pest management. According to Fortune Business Insights, the ag-biologicals market was valued at $7.42 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $20.59 billion by the end of 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 13.68%.

Mr. Elad Aharonson, President of Innovative Ag Solutions for ICL, said, "ICL is committed to creating impactful solutions for humanity’s sustainability challenges in the global food, agriculture and industrial markets, and this collaboration with Lavie Bio very much resonates with our sustainability goals and values. The collaboration demonstrates ICL’s commitment to bringing to market new, sustainable technologies for our customers. It also provides us with a strong platform to enter the ag-biologicals market, which we see as highly complementary to our existing agriculture business. Following an extensive evaluation of Lavie Bio’s technical capabilities, we enthusiastically look forward to collaborating with them to bring much needed novel ag-biological products to the global market."

Mr. Ofer Haviv, President & CEO of Evogene and Chairman of the Board of Lavie Bio, stated, "I wholeheartedly welcome Lavie Bio's collaboration with ICL, a key global provider for the agricultural market. Together, we have significant potential to develop novel ag-biologicals, which are expected to allow for the improvement of global food quality, agricultural sustainability and productivity, especially in a time of food scarcity, high prices and macroeconomic uncertainty. We look forward to working closely with our new partners in bringing improved solutions to farmers worldwide, while advancing Lavie Bio to the next stage in its development."

About ICL

ICL Group is a leading global specialty minerals company, which also benefits from commodity upside. The company creates impactful solutions for humanity's sustainability challenges in the global food, agriculture and industrial markets. ICL leverages its unique bromine, potash and phosphate resources, its passionate team of talented employees, and its strong focus on R&D and technological innovation, to drive growth across its end markets. ICL shares are dually listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (NYSE and TASE: ICL). The company employs more than 12,000 people worldwide, and its 2021 revenues totaled approximately $7 billion.

For more information, visit ICL's website at www.icl-group.com.
To access ICL's interactive ESG report, please click here.
You can also learn more about ICL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

About Evogene Ltd.

Evogene (Nasdaq: EVGN, TASE: EVGN) is a computational biology company aiming to revolutionize the development of life-science based products by utilizing cutting edge technologies to increase probability of success while reducing development time and cost. Evogene established three unique technological engines - MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI and GeneRator AI – leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence and incorporating deep multidisciplinary understanding in life sciences. Each technological engine is focused on the discovery and development of products based on one of the following core components: microbes (MicroBoost AI), small molecules (ChemPass AI), and genetic elements (GeneRator AI). Evogene uses its technological engines to develop products through subsidiaries and with strategic partners. Currently, Evogene’s main subsidiaries utilize the technological engines to develop human microbiome-based therapeutics by Biomica Ltd., medical cannabis products by Canonic Ltd., ag-chemicals by AgPlenus Ltd. and ag-biologicals by Lavie Bio Ltd.

For more information, please visit: www.evogene.com.

About Lavie Bio Ltd.

Lavie Bio, a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd., aims to improve food quality, sustainability, and agriculture productivity through the introduction of microbiome-based ag-biological products. Lavie Bio utilizes a proprietary computational predictive platform, harnessing the power of big data and advanced informatics, for the discovery, optimization and development of bio-stimulant and bio-pesticide products.

For more information, please visit www.lavie-bio.com.
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Singhania Singhania 2 years ago
Alt. Agriculture Plays Set to Pop on Sanctions

https://capitalgainsreport.com/2022/03/14/alt-agriculture-plays-set-to-pop-on-sanctions/
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midastouch017 midastouch017 2 years ago
Biomica Announces Clearance for First-in-Human Phase I Study of BMC-128 in Combination with Bristol Myers Squibb's Anti-PD-1 Opdivo®

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biomica-announces-clearance-first-human-120000125.html

Clearance for Proof-of-Concept Phase I human trial in oncology received from Israeli Ministry of Health

REHOVOT, Israel, Jan. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Biomica Ltd., an emerging biopharmaceutical company developing innovative microbiome-based therapeutics and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), today announced that the Israeli Ministry of Health (MoH) cleared the company to proceed with its Proof-of-Concept (POC), Phase I clinical trial of Biomica's drug candidate BMC-128 in patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), Melanoma or Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC), in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) immunotherapy (an anti-PD-1 agent).

Biomica has entered into a supply agreement for the utilization of Bristol Myers Squibb's (BMS) Opdivo® to evaluate the safety and tolerability of BMC-128 therapy in combination with nivolumab (Opdivo®), a human anti-PD-1 therapy, in multiple cancer indications.

The POC combination trial is designed to be a first-in-human (FIH) open-label study to evaluate the safety and tolerability of BMC-128 in combination with BMS' Opdivo® in patients with NSCLC, melanoma or RCC, clinical signals will be monitored as well. This study is expected to take place at Rambam Health Care Campus, as previously announced[1].

About BMC128:

BMC128 is a rationally designed microbial consortium identified and selected through a detailed functional microbiome analysis using PRISM, a proprietary high-resolution microbiome analysis platform powered by Evogene's MicroBoost AI platform.

Developed as a Live Bacterial Product (LBP), BMC128 is an LBP consortium comprised of four unique bacterial strains, natural inhabitants of the human intestinal tract, that harbor specific functional capabilities with the potential to enhance immunological therapeutic responses and facilitate anti-tumor immune activity through multiple biological processes.

Rationally-designed consortia are multi-strain products designed to restore diversity and specific functionality to a host's microbial community with individually selected, cultured bacteria.

About Biomica Ltd.:

Biomica is an emerging biopharmaceutical company developing innovative microbiome-based therapeutics utilizing a dedicated Computational Predictive Biology platform (CPB), licensed from Evogene. Biomica aims to identify and characterize disease-related microbiome entities and to develop novel therapeutics based on these understandings. The company is focused on the development of therapies for antibiotic resistant bacteria, immuno-oncology, and microbiome-related gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. Biomica is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN, TASE: EVGN). For more information, please visit www.biomicamed.com.

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midastouch017 midastouch017 2 years ago
Biomica & Rambam Health Care Campus Sign Agreement for Clinical Trial of Biomica's Microbiome-Based Immuno-Oncology Drug

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biomica-rambam-health-care-campus-121500590.html

REHOVOT and HAIFA, Israel, Oct. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Biomica Ltd., an emerging biopharmaceutical company developing innovative microbiome-based therapeutics and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), and Rambam Health Care Campus today announced the signing of a clinical trial agreement (CTA) for initiating a first in-human proof-of-concept (POC) for BMC128, Biomica's drug candidate.

The study is titled, "A Phase 1, Open-Label Study to Evaluate the Safety and Tolerability of BMC128 in Combination with anti-PD-1 in Patients with Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), Melanoma or Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC)." The study is designed primarily to evaluate the safety and tolerability of Biomica's microbiome-based immuno-oncology drug candidate, BMC128, in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) immunotherapy (an anti PD-1 agent).

The initiation of this study is pending approval by the Israeli Ministry of Health (MoH).

Dr. Elran Haber, CEO of Biomica, stated: "We are very excited to work with one of Israel's leading healthcare institutions, the Rambam Health Care Campus, and we look forward to initiating our first in-human POC study for BMC128, for the treatment of refractory cancer patients. Based on the compelling preclinical results achieved to-date, we are thrilled to take this next step in advancing BMC128 through the clinical development process. We hope that this important collaboration will be followed by further partnerships with additional leading medical institutions."

Dr. Ruth Perets, Head of Rambam's Oncology Phase 1 Clinical Trials, stated: "We are thrilled to lead this clinical trial, aiming to target the important issue of ICI resistance. ICIs have revolutionized the field of oncology, providing prolonged survival in many malignancies. However, resistance to ICI eventually occurs in most patients, and evidence suggests that the gut microbiota plays a role in ICI resistance. We are excited to the test the ability of BMC128 to overcome ICI resistance and help provide patients meaningful and long responses to treatment."

As previously reported, treatment with BMC128 in combination with ICI immunotherapy, significantly enhanced anti-tumor activity in various preclinical models. This resulted in an increased response of tumors to anti-PD1, as demonstrated in an improved Objective Response Rate (ORR) and Percent Tumor Growth Inhibition (%TGI). Response to BMC128 was correlated with a desired anti-tumor immunological profile. BMC128 changed the course of response to ICI, leading to stimulation of the immune system which shifted cold-tumors into hot-tumors.

Biomica's immuno-oncology program is based on the premise that the gut microbiome affects the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, specifically that of the ICI involving the blockade of PD-1 or PD-L1 and CTLA-4 as suggested in scientific literature[1],[2]. Fecal microbial transplantation has been recently reported to increase response in patients resistant to immune-checkpoint therapy[3],[4]. However, the specific microbial entities driving this response are currently unknown.

BMC128 is a rationally designed microbial consortium identified and selected through a detailed functional microbiome analysis using PRISM, a proprietary high-resolution microbiome analysis platform powered by Evogene's MicroBoost AI platform.

About BMC128:

Developed as a Live Bacterial Product (LBP), BMC128 is a rationally-designed LBP consortium comprised of four unique bacterial strains, natural inhabitants of the human intestinal tract, that harbor specific functional capabilities with the potential to enhance immunological therapeutic responses and facilitate anti-tumor immune activity through multiple biological processes.

Rationally-designed consortia are multi-strain products designed to restore diversity and specific functionality to a host's microbial community with individually selected, cultured bacteria.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 2 years ago
Canonic Announces Full Commercial Launch of its First Medical Cannabis Products in Israel

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/canonic-announces-full-commercial-launch-110000325.html

Canonic moves ahead of schedule with the full commercial launch of its G-nnovation products, following positive feedback from patients during the company's pre-launch campaign

REHOVOT, Israel, Oct. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Canonic Ltd., focused on the development of medical cannabis products and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), today announced the full commercial launch of its first two medical cannabis products, known as G200 and G150, following positive feedback received from patients during the company's pre-launch campaign. These products were originally expected to be released to market during 2022.

Canonic's first launched products, G200 and G150, are part of the G-nnovation product line under Canonic's Meta Yield product program. Canonic's G200 product will be available under the T20/C4 category[1] and G150 will be available under the T15/C3 category[2], according to the product categories established by the Israeli Ministry of Health. These products are based on cannabis varieties that were selected and developed using Evogene's computational platform to express high levels of THC[3] and premium consumer traits[4].

In September and October 2021, Canonic conducted a pre-launch campaign, during which G200 and G150 were marketed in Israel to a limited number of licensed patients through selected pharmacies. Following positive feedback in the pre-launch campaign, indicating high patient satisfaction with the quality and positive effect of the products, Canonic decided to move ahead with the full commercial launch of these products in Israel. This was ahead of the original scheduled launch, which had been planned for 2022. These products will be widely available to consumers in pharmacies across Israel, from the day of this announcement.

With respect to product production for next year, as disclosed in the past, Canonic's business model, which is based on producing products through external growers and manufacturers, provides the company relative flexibility in meeting demand in the market.

There are more than 100,000 licensed patients in Israel that consumed approximately 27 tons of cannabis in the first 8 months of 2021[5], and the total medical cannabis market in Israel is estimated at $260 million per year[6]. According to industry estimates, based on current growth rates, the number of patients in the Israeli market is expected to more than double by 2025.[7]

Dr. Arnon Heyman, CEO of Canonic, stated: "We are very excited to have reached this milestone ahead of target. This follows the very encouraging market feedback we received from patients, indicating potential market demand for our products. Our launch marks a key milestone in bringing closer our vision to become a world-leading medical cannabis company. We see today's launch in Israel as only the beginning of our journey and our longer-term goal is to expand into additional markets abroad, with the European markets being our next target."

Mr. Ofer Haviv, Chairman of Canonic and CEO & President of Evogene, stated: "I am pleased to see that within a very short time Canonic has built an impressive operation, with the launch of its first commercial-scale sales of medical cannabis. We are proud of the key role that Evogene played in this achievement, supporting product development using our unique platform and computational biology tech engine, GeneRator AI. We look forward to Canonic continuing to meet and exceed expectations and goals on its way to delivering exceptional products to patients."

About Canonic Ltd.:

Canonic is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN, TASE: EVGN), developing medical Cannabis products utilizing a Computational Predictive Biology (CPB) platform. The Company's products in development are aimed at improving active compounds yield, genetic stability and Cannabis varieties for specific medical indications. The Company's strategy includes the development of Cannabis varieties in order to commercialize medical Cannabis products independently or through collaborations. Canonic has exclusive access to Evogene's genomic assets and technology for the development of medical Cannabis products. For more information, please visit: https://www.canonicbio.com/.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 2 years ago
Lavie Bio and United Agronomy Announce Signing of Distribution Agreement for Lavie Bio's Inoculant Product

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lavie-bio-united-agronomy-announce-110000142.html

Commercialization targeted for 2022 for spring wheat initially

REHOVOT, Israel and BERTHOLD, N.D., Sept. 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Lavie Bio Ltd. (Lavie), a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), and a leading ag-biologicals company focusing on improving food quality, sustainability, and agriculture productivity through the introduction of microbiome-based products, and United Agronomy (UA), a full-service retailer of crop inputs, including seeds, inoculants, fertilizers, and chemicals, announce today that they have entered into a distribution agreement, initially for spring wheat, for LAV.211, a Lavie developed inoculant. Under the terms of the agreement, LAV.211 will be distributed through UA's marketing channels in North Dakota, USA as part of UA's robust product offering, which includes top certified seed varieties and preferred seed treatments. The parties expect that initial marketing and commercialization activity will target the 2022 spring wheat season, in North Dakota.

LAV.211 is a microbial based inoculant, that has been designed to empower plant performance based on its ability to improve the uptake and assimilation of nutrients, thereby increasing yield and improving growers' profitability, while contributing to environmental sustainability and soil health. LAV.211 will be applied as a seed treatment and is formulated as a water dispersible granule (WDG).

The signing of the distribution agreement follows the evaluation and testing of LAV.211 with UA and its partners (Vision Research Park and Genesis Seeds Solutions) across various locations and over multiple seasons, in target regions of North Dakota in the United States.

Mr. Ido Dor, CEO of Lavie Bio, stated: "We are pleased to partner with United Agronomy, a leading agricultural company in our target region of North Dakota. United Agronomy and Lavie share similar values, putting farmer's needs first and foremost. With this agreement, Lavie Bio enthusiastically looks forward to the expected commercialization of its first product in 2022."

Mr. RJ Theis, CEO of United Agronomy, stated: "United Agronomy is excited to collaborate with a leading ag-biotech company, Lavie Bio. Research trials conducted by Vision Research Park over the past three years have demonstrated positive results with LAV.211, throughout northwest North Dakota and we are thrilled to offer LAV.211 to producers as another tool to increase return on investment. We firmly believe the innovative products created by Lavie Bio will continue to add value for producers throughout our trade territory."

About United Agronomy LLP:

United Agronomy LLP was formed October 31, 2000. United Agronomy LLP, Vision Research Park and Genesis Seed Solutions combined offerings include: Certified Seed and Treatments, Crop Protection products, Biologicals, Fertilizers (NH3, Dry and Liquid), Custom Application and Agronomic Services. United Agronomy and partners continue to invest and support local communities where their employees work and live.

About Lavie Bio Ltd.:

Lavie Bio, a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd., aims to improve food quality, sustainability and agriculture productivity through the introduction of microbiome-based ag-biological products. Lavie Bio utilizes a proprietary computational predictive platform, the BDD platform, harnessing the power of big data and advanced informatics, for the discovery, optimization and development of bio-stimulant and bio-pesticide products. Corteva, Inc. holds approximately 28% in Lavie Bio. For more information, please visit www.lavie-bio.com.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Evogene's Canonic Begins Selling High THC Cannabis In Israeli Medical Market

07:16 AM - Seeking Alpha - Israel Stocks
Summary

Canonic introduces their new proprietary cannabis strains and begins limited distribution in Israel. The company will make a full commercial release of the new products in 2022.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4455034-evogene-stock-canonic-begins-selling-high-thc-cannabis-in-israeli-medical-market
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mrplmer mrplmer 3 years ago
Since you are the only poster on this board.......why are you invested in this stock please?
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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Canonic Announces Pre-Launch of its First Generation Medical Cannabis Products in Israel

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/canonic-announces-pre-launch-first-110000986.html

Pre-launch of G-nnovation product line to a limited number of patients:

Full commercial launch expected in 2022

REHOVOT, Israel, Aug. 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Canonic Ltd, a company focused on the development of medical cannabis products and a wholly owned subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), announced today the pre-launch of its first-generation medical cannabis inflorescence products.

Canonic's first product line, G-nnovation, is based on cannabis varieties that were selected and developed to express high levels of THC[1] and premium consumer traits. As part of the pre-launch, G-nnovation products will be marketed in Israel to a limited number of licensed patients through Telepharma pharmacy, with whom Canonic recently engaged. Full commercial product launch in Israel is expected in 2022.

The pre-launch follows the successful completion of selection and development of the first-generation G-nnovation product line under Canonic's Meta Yield product program, the approval of The Israel Medical Cannabis Authority (IMCA) of the product files, and the establishment of commercialization channels. With this, Canonic has completed its end-to-end cannabis value chain in Israel, from seed to product.

According to recent statistics, in July 2021 there were approximately 100,000 licensed patients in Israel that consumed approximately 20 tons of cannabis in the first 6 months of the year[2], with a total medical cannabis market in Israel estimated at $260 million per year[3]. According to industry estimates, based on current growth rates, the Israeli market will reach approximately 250,000 patients by 2025.[4]

Dr. Arnon Heyman, CEO of Canonic stated: "We are very excited to launch our first products in the Israeli market. We achieved this milestone in a very short time due to our experienced team and strong computational biology capabilities. I see this as our first step in fulfilling our vision to become a leading global medical cannabis company. The initial launch in the Israeli market is only the beginning of our journey towards penetration to additional markets abroad."

Mr. Ofer Haviv, Chairman of Canonic and CEO & President of Evogene, stated: "I am pleased to see that within a very short time, Canonic has built an impressive operation, which we expect will come into full fruition in 2022 with first commercial scale sales of medical cannabis in Israel. This milestone was achieved, in part, by using Evogene's platform with its unique computational capabilities in the field of genomics, namely the GeneRator AI tech engine."

About Canonic Ltd.:

Canonic is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN, TASE: EVGN), developing medical Cannabis products utilizing a Computational Predictive Biology (CPB) platform. The Company's products in development are aimed at improving active compounds yield, genetic stability and Cannabis varieties for specific medical indications. The Company's strategy includes the development of Cannabis varieties in order to commercialize medical Cannabis products independently or through collaborations. Canonic has exclusive access to Evogene's genomic assets and technology for the development of medical Cannabis products. For more information, please visit: https://www.canonicbio.com/.

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Evogene Ltd. (EVGN) CEO Ofer Haviv on Q2 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Aug. 11, 2021 1:55 PM ETEvogene Ltd. (EVGN)

Evogene Ltd. (EVGN) Q2 2021 Results Conference Call August 11, 2021 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ofer Haviv – President and Chief Executive Officer

Dorit Kreiner – Chief Financial Officer

Sarit Firon – Chairperson of the Board

Conference Call Participants

Kristen Kluska – Cantor Fitzgerald

Ben Klieve – Lake Street

Nathan Weinstein – Aegis Capital

Geoff Gilbert – Inukshuk

Kenny Green – Edison Group

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Evogene's Second Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call.

All participants are at present, in a listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, August 11th, 2021. Before we begin, I would like to caution that certain statements made during this earnings conference call by Evogene 's management will constitute forward-looking statements that relate to future events, risks, and uncertainties regarding business strategy, operations, and future performance and results of Evogene.

I encourage you to review Evogene's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and read the note regarding forward-looking statements in today's earnings release, which states that statements made in the earnings release and in a similar way on this earnings conference call that is not historical facts may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For example, Evogene is using forward-looking statements in this call when it discusses its expected halves-to-value creation and its belief that turning one or more of its subsidiaries into public companies will be beneficial to its shareholders.

Evogene and its subsidiaries expected trials, studies, product advancements, commercialization, launches, pipelines, milestones, potential collaborations, cash usage, and other plans for 2021 and 2022, the potential advantages of its technology, and its anticipated entry into new fields of activity. All forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of the announcement of results. Many of the factors that impact whether forward-looking statements will come true are beyond the control of Evogene and may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results.

Evogene is under no obligation to update publicly or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law. We expressly disclaim any obligation to do so. More detailed information about the risk factors, potentially adversely impacting our performance, can be found in our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That said, I would now like to turn the call over to Ofer Haviv, Evogene 's CEO. Ofer, please go ahead.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you, and good day, everyone. We appreciate your joining us today for our second quarter 2021 conference call. Joining me today are, Ms. Sarit Firon, Evogene 's new Chairperson, and Ms. Dorit Kreiner, our CFO. Sarit will start the conference call with a short introduction and provide her vision of the Evogene group. I will then discuss our plan for unlocking the value of our subsidiaries and provide an overview of our recent achievements.

Dorit will summarize Evogene's financial results for the second quarter and the first half of 2021. We will then open the call for your questions. Before I hand over to Sarit, our new Chairperson, I would like to address Martin Gerstel, our former Chairman. As you know, in June this year, after two decades of chairing Evogene since our founding, Martin felt he should take a well-deserved retirement from Evogene.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Martin wholeheartedly for his constant leadership and vision as our Chairperson and his ongoing invaluable contribution to Evogene 's development. And on a personal note, I would also like to thank him for his guidance and support of me in the role of a CEO. I would like to welcome Sarit as Evogene's new Chairperson. Sarit has been a highly effective member of our board since 2016 and knows Evogene and its subsidiaries very well, which will ensure a smooth transition into her new role as Chairperson of the Board.

Sarit brings to Evogene more than 27 years of global investments and operational experience across Silicon Valley, New York, and Tel Aviv. She's one of Israel's most accomplished investors and is well known for helping to build companies from their early-stage to successful IPO s and acquisitions. Sarit currently serves as a Managing Partner of the Team Eight Group and Managing Partner of the Team Eight Capital, the investment arm of the group. She has held numerous operational and leadership roles, serving as chairperson and board member, CEO, and CFO at prominent high-tech companies.

I cannot think of anyone better suited to assume the role of a chairperson at present and I'm truly excited that she has agreed to this role. On behalf of all the management, employees, and investors in Evogene, I would like to wish her much success. Sarit, please.

Sarit Firon

Thank you, Ofer, for your warm introduction. I'm honored to have the opportunity to lead Evogene as its new Chairperson. Evogene is an extraordinary Company with highly differentiated predictive discovery and development capabilities, and an impressive product pipeline suite subsidiary.

I look forward to working with my fellow directors, Ofer and Dorit Kreiner, senior management team. Together, we will take Evogene and its subsidiaries to the next level in value creation and subsequently gain recognition by the capital markets. I would like to join Ofer in thanking Martin for his significant contribution made to Evogene since its inception.

Martin should be extremely proud of Evogene 's journey from its establishment to where we are today. He's one of the key leaders that build the foundation for a promising future ahead. Our vision is to change the way life science companies are developing their products to substantially increase their probability of success and at the same time, reducing the time and cost of life-science product development.

To execute this vision, our strategy is to focus on utilizing the most advanced computational Biology with development. Over the last 2 decades, Evogene has developed a unique Computational Predictive Biology platform and an investment of tens of millions of dollars incorporating distinct scientific understanding, together with big data and artificial intelligence. We've then established subsidiaries, who had developed a strong product pipeline very rapidly, by utilizing these advanced technologies.

And now, our subsidiaries are reaching the level of maturity, with their underlying value is becoming a current. As Ofer stated in his introduction, throughout my career, I've taken companies to the next level, by realizing their value potential to IPO acquisition, or other financial transactions.

I'm excited to bring this experience to Evogene and its subsidiaries, to help in unlocking the inherent value in each subsidiary. We will ensure that each subsidiary is focused on its key strength. This will enable us to realize its unique value. Also, we'll elaborate on our strategy later in the call. So now, I would like to hand it over to Ofer, and I look forward to continually updating you about our progress and achievements in the future. Ofer, back to you.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you, Sarit. My remarks in today's call will focus on our strategy for unlocking the value created within the Evogene subsidiaries for the benefit of Evogene shareholders. In addition, I will describe the major achievements of our subsidiaries over the past six months, and an outlook for their continued operations this year.

To set the common ground for our discussion, I would like to recap the main topic I covered in our previous quarter's call. First, our broadly applicable Computational Predictive Biology platform, the CPB, and the three tech engines relying on this platform: MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI, and GeneRator AI.

As stated, many times, we believe this technology engine provides a significant competitive advantage in the discovery and development of life-science-based products in multiple industries. Second, our proven ability to create subsidiaries in multiple life-science-based fields by utilizing the CPB platform and the SwedeTech engines with each subsidiary demonstrating its ability to rapidly discover and develop very promising product pipelines.

Lastly, I stated our intention to continue to initiate new activities in additional life-science-based fields. Moving now to what I would like to focus on today, that is, how do we intend to provide financial benefit to the Evogene shareholders in the near term for our subsidiaries? Our starting point is that each of our subsidiaries contains a substantial internal value that is created through its rapidly developing pipeline and the use of Evogene 's unique technology. I would like to elaborate.

As you know, investing in innovative lifestyle's best companies, such as those within the Evogene group, presents both financial advantage and risk for investors. The primary advantage is that, in general, its successful, innovative life-science-based product can be very profitable. In addition, and very importantly for investors, innovative companies with promising life-science-based products in their pipeline as Evogene 's subsidiaries, can have significant market value long before the products are commercialized.

On the other hand, the primary risk in investing in innovative life science-based companies is that such products typically have very high failure rates. Furthermore, those that are successful generally take a relatively long time to be commercialized. We believe that Evogene 's unique technology that is valuable to each of our subsidiaries for their field of focus, provides a substantial advantage concerning dealing with those challenges of high failure rate and time-to-market. As demonstrated in our subsidiary's recovery and early development pipelines.

So if our subsidiaries enjoyed the benefit of their rapidly developing pipeline, and their utilization of Evogene 's technology is expected to reduce time-to-market and increase the probability of success, why isn't our subsidiaries' potential fully reflected in Evogene 's market value? We think that Evogene group's current structure of a public Company with a variety of privately-held subsidiaries operating in different fields of activity creates difficulty for the capital markets to properly value each subsidiary.

Therefore, we believe that if our subsidiaries were valued separately, it would result in a far greater combined market value for the Evogene group. Based on these assumptions, our general strategy for unlocking the value of our subsidiaries for the benefit of Evogene 's shareholders is to facilitate an independent valuation of each of our subsidiaries, regardless of Evogene or the other subsidiaries and we are currently exploring ways to achieving these targets.

We believe that one way to achieve this in a manner that will be beneficial to our shareholders is to turn 1 or more of our subsidiaries into a public Company, that will trade independently of Evogene. In this regard, [Indiscernable] path that we are exploring is the distribution of a portion of Evogene's holding in one or more of those subsidiaries to our shareholders. Of course, the decision if, when, and how to spin off a subsidiary Company will depend on many considerations, including market conditions, the subsidiary financial needs, partner maturity, valuation, applicable regulations, etc.

However, as stated, our current intent is to facilitate an independent valuation of each of our subsidiaries in the near term and to do so in a manner that provides financial benefits to the Evogene shareholders. We look forward to providing additional information regarding the implementation of this very exciting strategy. I would now like to move on to an overview of our recent achievements.

I am pleased to report that both Evogene and our subsidiaries have been progressing. And I would like to highlight the following activities and advancements all made in the first half of 2021 and what can be expected for the second half of 2021. We will start with Biomica, focusing on the development of drugs based on the human microbiome utilizing Evogene's MicroBoost AI tech engine. In the first half of 2021, Biomica has continued to preparations for the initiations of its first-in-man proof-of-concept study in the immuno-oncology program and continued with its pre-clinical programs for gut disorders.

2 important announcements have been released by Biomica during the first half of the year. In Q1, Biomica released impressive pre-clinical data for its rationally-designed microbiome therapeutic candidate BMC128 in immuno-oncology. BMC 128 in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors, ICI, in the breast cancer mouse model, demonstrated to announce anti-tumor activity as manifested in an increase of almost 50% in objective response rate in comparison to ICI alone.

In Q2, Biomica reported the BMC128 has significantly increased anti-tumor activity, in combination with ICI, but this time in melanoma. These positive pre-clinical results could indicate the potential BMC128 to become best-in-class in the treatment of various types of solid cancer tumors and support the validation of the Biomica computational-based drug designs approach.

As for the second half of 2021, Biomica expects to initiate its first-in-human proof-of-concept clinical trial in Israel later this year in its immuno-oncology program. As preparation for this milestone, Biomica initiated the scale-up processes and move to GMP production of its drug candidate, as well as submitted the relevant documents for regulatory approval. We also expect to receive clinical results for the IBD program.

Let's move to the second Company in the field of human health, Canonical. Canonic's vision is to become a world leader in developing and commercializing effective, precise, and stable medical cannabis products based on novel cannabis varieties.

To achieve this vision, Canonic utilized Evogene 's GeneRator AI tech engine. With eyes on the global market, the Company is making its first steps in the Israeli market with impressive progress indicating big potential. In the first half of this year, Canonic invest significant resources to establish its production and marketing infrastructure in preparation for product launch in Israel in 2022 as planned. Two important announcements have been released by Canonic during the first half of the year.

The first was signing a production and distributions agreement in anticipation of the commercialization of its first product in the MetaYield program in 2022. The second was announced an agreement for joint development of novel medical cannabis products with Cannbit Tikun Olam. This is part of Canonic's Precise Products Program. During the second half of 2021, Canonic will continue with preparation towards the selection and commercialization of its first-generation MetaYield Premium Products and will focus its research and development efforts on next-generation Metayield varieties.

In addition, Canonic expects to achieve its milestone for the Precise Product Program and identify a line that exhibits distinct effects in model systems for reducing pain or inflammation. Now, I will move to AgPlenus, our subsidiary in the Ag industry segments. genus ' mission is to develop and commercialize novel and safe crop protection products to control pests and produce higher yields, supporting the growing demand for high-quality food. To achieve this vision, AgPlenus utilized Evogene 's ChemPass AI tech engine.

During the first half of 2021, AgPlenus focused on 2 important activities; making considerable progress in its collaboration with Corteva to develop novel herbicides, and continuing to develop and test additional compounds in its internal herbicide program. AgPlenus recently announced it achieved positive results in a proof-of-concept experiment developing resistance trait for herbicide candidate targeting APTH1, AgPlenus Target Herbicide 1, its leading novel mode of action for herbicide in its internal program.

This POC demonstrates the ability to generate resistance traits in target crops to herbicide targeting the new mode of action, APTH1. This is a significant milestone as a resistant trait and able farmers to kill weeds without damaging the commercial crop. In the second half of 2021, AgPlenus will focus on three main targets. Advancing its strategic collaboration with Corteva, expanding its product pipeline to reach the lead phase for an additional candidate targeting APTH1, and lastly, advancing commercialization effort for APTH1.

Our second subsidiary to the Ag industry is Lavie Bio. Lavie Bio's mission is to improve food quality, sustainability, and agriculture productivity through microbiome-based and biological technology and products. To achieve this mission, Lavie Bio utilized Evogene 's MicroBoost AI tech engine.

The main focus of the Company in the first half of 2021 has been on advancing its product pipeline. At the core of its activity are the LAV211, biostimulant for spring wheat as the first target crop, and LAV311 /312, bio fungicide for grapes as its first target crop. We will lead biostimulant, LAV211, which is expected to be launched in 2022.

Commercial trials are continuing and there has been further advancement of formulation and product readiness. As part of the Company's preparation for commercialization, its commercial team expanded with the appointment of a VP commercial, building the path to market in North America, the initial target market for our biostimulants.

For the next 6 months, Lavie Bio will continue to prepare for the expected lead biostimulants LAV211 commercial launch in 2022, which we anticipate will include an agreement with a potential distribution partner. About our leader bio fungicide LAV311, LAV312, we are advancing an additional season of a multi-location field trial in Europe and the U.S., which are focused on advanced validations of an optimized and improved generation or formulation. In addition, trials for expanding the use of the bio fungicide into additional potential and lucrative crops are being conducted.

Concerning LAV311, LAV312, our lead bio fungicide, we expect to finalize the formulation protocol and initiate data generation for regulatory filing in 2022. Last but not least is our feed rate division. It aims to develop high-quality food based on improved seeds with high commercial value, leveraging computational genomics and biology. To achieve its targets, the division utilized the GeneRator AI tech engine.

In the first half of 2021, the focus of the seed trade division was on developing technology for seed improvement using genome-editing technologies, enabling deletion or modification of specific genomic regions, in the genome of the crop, without inserting foreign DNA into the plant. During this period, [Indiscernable] division completed the establishment of the first version of the computational and biological genome editing platform for the utilization of CRISPR technology in different crops, currently focusing on soybean and tomato.

In the frame of the division, genome-editing activity, Evogene participates in the CRISPR iron consortium with Dr. Ayalew Manuel (ph), Evogene 's VP in New Directions serving as the President of the Consortium. We were very pleased to announce at the beginning of 2021 the completion by this Consortium of the first version of the artificial intelligence-driven platform for genome editing.

During the second half of the year, the sea trade division aims to leverage the CRISPR technology for the development of disease-tolerant and high-quality trade-in soybean and tomato lines. Another important project the division is involved in targets improving the carbon stimulation by plants, reducing carbon pollution, which aims to slow the damage of global warming.

In this project, which is funded by the European Horizon 2020 program, our seed division collaborates with world-leading academic institutions, such as Max Planck Institute, the [Indiscernable] Institute, and Imperial College London. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Dorit Kreiner, our CFO. Dorit?

Dorit Kreiner

Thank you, Ofer. I will begin by reviewing our cash balance. Evogene continues to maintain a strong financial position for its activities with approximately $65.4 million in consolidated cash, cash-related accounts, bank deposits, and marketable securities as of June 30, 2021. Approximately $10.6 million of Evogene's consolidated cash is appropriated to its subsidiary Lavie Bio. During the first half of 2021, the consolidated cash usage was approximately 11.3 million, or 8.9 million if excluding Lavie Bio.

These sums exclude 28 million net raised to our ATM offerings and exclude 0.5 million for sales for the micro size of options. During the second quarter, the consolidated cash usage was approximately 5.7 million, or 4.5 million if excluding Lavie Bio. These sums exclude 0.8 million net rates while the current ATM is detailed below. During the first half of 2021, and in particular, during the second quarter, the burn rate was higher than the same period in 2020 for the following reasons.

First, during the second quarter of 2020, the burn rate was unusually low due to certain measures the Company took to mitigate the impact of the COVID -19 pandemic on the Company, including a temporary reduction in salary-based expenditure and a cutback in secondary activities. Second, during the second quarter of 2021, Evogene 's subsidiary increased their investment substantially in advancing their product development pipelines, including; Biomica continued preparations [Indiscernable] of first-in-human proof-of-concept study in the immuno-oncology program later this year.

Lavie Bio's activities towards the expected commercialization launch of its lead biostimulant in 2022. and Canonic's establishment of its production and marketing infrastructure in preparation for expected product launch in Israel in 2022. We continue to estimate that our cash usage for the full year of 2021 will be within the anticipated range of 20 million to 22 million. These guidelines exclude cash usage of our subsidiary Lavie Bio.

Under our current ATM, which we announced in March 2021, we raised 0.8 million net with a weighted average price of approximately $4.7 per ordinary share. The Company does not have bank debt. Let's now turn to the statement of operation. Revenues for the second quarter of 2021 were 0.1 million in comparison to 0.3 million in the same period the previous year.

R&D expenses for the second quarter of 2021, which are reported net [Indiscernable] with 5.0 million in comparison to 3.9 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase in R&D expenses in this quarter was mainly attributed to product development activities of the Company and its subsidiaries, as mentioned above.

Business development expenses were approximately 0.7 million for the second quarter of 2021 in comparison to 0.5 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase is attributed mainly due to Canonic's and Lavie's preparation towards the expected launch of their first products in 2022. General and administrative expenses for the second quarter of 2021 were 1.8 million in comparison to 1.1 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase is attributed due to the increase in the cost of directors' and officers' insurance. Operating loss for the second quarter of 2021 was 7.4 million in comparison to 5.2 million in the second quarter of 2020. The loss for the second quarter of 2021 was 6.9 million in comparison to a loss of 4.8 million during the second quarter of 2020. With that said, we would now like to open up the call for any questions you may have. Operator?

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Ofer Haviv and Dorit Kreiner will be available to take your questions. [Operator Instructions] Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Please stand by while we poll for your questions. The first question is from Kristen Kluska of Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Kristen Kluska

Hi. Good morning and good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. So I'll start with one big picture question here. As you're nearing potential commercialization for your first 2 programs next year, MetaYield and LAV211, could you remind us how you view the initial market opportunities? And I would imagine that most of the customers, you or a partner would be looking to get in front of would-be perhaps looking to make a switch from another product that they currently use, so what are your view as the main selling points or advantages to get there?

Ofer Haviv

Hi, this is Ofer. Thank you for your question. We didn't disclose the specific numbers or guidelines with respect to potential revenue over the first product. But what I can share is that with respect to Lavie Bio's first product, we are talking now with a few local distributors that are going to -- will be responsible for the sales of our product in the target location. At least for the first year, we're not expecting to -- something significant.

The expectation is just from the second year then the numbers will be more material. And what is really nice is that the distributors we are working with them are the one that we are also using them to conduct a field trial experiment. They are the ones that really see the performance in their field. They are the ones that collect the data. In a way, they are our best ambassadors for the quality of our product.

It's not that we supply them the data, they actually generate together with us the data. And what is really nice, and this is something that we disclosed already, is that the performance of our products compared to existing commercial available product is better. So I think that our strength with the yield improvement, and compared to the competitor, this will be the key message that we are going to use in order to promote our products.

With respect to Canonic, over here, we are expecting to reach the market using a local distributor that we already spent time with them on the agreement. And we are expecting to reach the customers next year through a local pharmacy, pharmacy on the internet, and we are organizing a campaign -- a marketing campaign to drive the sales of our products for next year.

One thing we're planning to do is that our statement why to buy the able -- the economic product and not the -- our competitive product is the quality. And the quality will be based on the? cannabinoid? profile and how the crop looks in the -- protective of the consumer, the patients. What we learn is that the way that the flowers look is very important for the consumers, and our variety is showing a very high rate in this parameter.

During the growing season's selection, we brought to our farm potential customers, people that they are buying canna -- medical cannabis products. We show them our variety and we use their recommendation as part of the breeding process, as part of the selection process. And we feel that we have the type of product that will fall into the premium category. And this will be our main statement why our products are more suitable to the needs of the potential customers.

Kristen Kluska

Thank you. And then in terms of your announcement this morning regarding the strategy of potentially exploring the idea of turning one or more subsidiaries into public companies, could you talk about the timing as to why you believe now this is something that you are looking to consider? And generally speaking, since your subsidiaries range from the early preclinical stage to near commercialization, is there a certain point you're looking to make these changes?

Ofer Haviv

I think that at least a few of our companies are really advancing nicely to commercialization, and this is Canonic and Lavie Bio, and Biomica is advancing very nicely toward the clinical trial. They're all active in very -- in very hot spaces where investors are looking for an investment opportunity. I don't think that we are planning to take all of them into the public market, but probably we will evaluate them one by one.

And when the market condition and the development on these companies when we should just state that we're seeing this would be the right time. So this is what we are planning to do. But the thing that it's -- we are getting close to this stage. And I believe that this is -- will be for the benefit of Evogene's shareholders.

We are -- we can -- instead of investing the money that there was and invest as part form and promoting our subsidiary, we can do it as the art form in a public offering, or we can do it also as part in a private firm, together with additional financial investors. I think the main target is we would like to do is to give to each subsidiary -- what we'd like to do is to give to our -- the capital market the opportunity to evaluate each activity separately because we believe that when you will accumulate all the value of each subsidiary, you will get a much higher valuation than the current valuation of Evogene.

We will start with one we see and, hopefully, we will see the positive effects on Evogene share, and then we can start to move with the other companies. This is the main purpose of this strategy. And, of course, we need to make sure that we're going -- we're doing it for the benefit of our shareholders.

And this is why we also considered that in some cases, maybe, to distribute to our shareholders ' portion from our holding in these subsidiaries so they can benefit also from the growing value of our subsidiaries. And, as I stated, the main reason is to allow the capital market to evaluate this part from the Evogene group activity in an easier way since it will be isolated from the other activity.

Kristen Kluska

Thank you. And then the last question from me. I think each of these subsidiaries, has a pipeline beyond the main programs that you've discussed, particularly as validation has been achieved, do they looked at other avenues the CPB platform could be utilized. So there's this strategy, how do you think about each potential subsidiary exploring value beyond the initial focus and pipeline, if they should have added resources on-hand? And then how do some of the other spaces that you are considering like aquaculture and drug optimization fit into this strategy as well. Thanks again.

Ofer Haviv

Okay, so first, and this is somehow related to the reason that we want to spin out our subsidiary. We have currently four subsidiaries. And each one of them has a very, very promising product pipeline. And the product pipeline of our subsidiaries contained more than what we are disclosed in our press release and through the analysts call, just because we can't cover everything.

And I think this is really far from the reason why the market cannot really evaluate each subsidiary by itself. So, yes, in addition to the product -- in addition to the lead product of each subsidiary, that I emphasized in my speech, there are more candidates which are advancing very nicely, and I would like to recommend each one of the audience to visit our subsidiary website and really look into the pipeline because there is much other promising stuff than what I'm sharing with you mainly due to time constraints.

With respect to additional activity, the license that we are giving to our subsidiary through the Evogene technology is limited to a very specific scope and this is the area that they are focusing on. They cannot use the Evogene technology outside -- of their scope. And so if Evogene -- if they want to expand their focus to an additional area, they need to ask for Evogene to extend their license. So this is with respect to the subsidiary.

But with respect to Evogene, one of the reasons that we want to spin out those subsidiaries, because then it will give us -- will allow us to focus on a new opportunity and that we -- some of them we already start to explore, you mentioned a microbiome for the aqua agriculture. This is one of the areas that we are validated. And another area is using our technology to optimize direct candidates, which are based on small molecules.

And another area to validate is maybe using the generator technology for developing alternative protein from a veggie protein to replace mammalian protein. So I think that all of this area if you really want to start to explore and to start to expand into, I it will be relatively much easier if one or more of our subsidiaries will be completely independent of Evogene with their own financial resources when we are just supporting them through our technology and being a shareholder.

And this will allow us to expand our technology and we can do it then through a separate subsidiary, or through collaboration, or we can always decide it should be part of Evogene. But, probably, I believe, it will be through a subsidiary -- new subsidiaries or through collaborations.

Kristen Kluska

Thank you.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Ben Klieve of Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Ben Klieve

All right. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got a couple, but first a clarifying question on the launch of LAV211. Is your expectation that that launch is going to be with the crop -- the spring crop that gets planted in 7, 8 months, or is the expectation that the revenue of it is going to be wait '22 for the spring wheat crop in the spring of 2023?

Ofer Haviv

We expect to be able to use it in the next season, meaning that we can recognize the revenue during 2022.

Ben Klieve

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Then, a couple of follow-up questions and -- given that. I wasn't aware that the distributor -- that you had a distributor working with you on the field trials that you're working with now had commercialization. That's great to hear. Can you characterize -- how field trials have expanded over the past couple of years? I know you have 20 events noted in a field trial in your presentation. This year, do you have 20 more field trials ongoing with the same distributor? Any context around how that -- how those trials have evolved would be great.

Ofer Haviv

I don't have in front me the numbers of the field trial, but I can tell you -- can share with you the following. The numbers of field trials that we conduct this year, I think it's almost, again, I hope that I am not mistaken, but the thing is we've doubled the size of the previous year. It's really in a very [Indiscernable]

And this is actually very, very important because this year, it wasn't a very easy -- it's still -- it's not an easy year to measure yield improvement because of the drought that really is very severe and not helps people that are trying to evaluate the performance of our biological. But because we conducted this experience in so many places, that seeing that we have enough statistics to allow us to make the final decision should we start the -- to launch the product next year. And I think that we have many good shapes with this aspect.

Ben Klieve

Got it. And that actually would have been my next question here around the drought -- -- how pervasive the drought conditions are especially in wheat acreage. How did your -- how is your distributor thinking about launching new products next year? How are they thinking about, potentially -- just -- the market is just a mess right now in spring wheat. And so I just -- I'm curious how they're thinking about going product next year versus last year's? One has been a bit more predictable.

Ofer Haviv

I think that this is a little bit too detailed question that I will prefer that maybe the CEO of Lavie Bio will address, but I think that -- the fact that we have results based on the last three years, coming from the last three years. And in all of these years, the performance of our product was better than our competitor.

And I really hope that this year we'll succeed to generate enough statistical data to demonstrate the performance of our product. I think it will be enough information for our distributor to start their marketing of the product in the local region. Agriculture is a very -- sometimes I think that it's almost like a gamble because of the weather conditions.

And every year you need to start and hope that this year things will be according to plan. And farmers are really doing their best. So next year, it will be a new game. Hopefully, the condition will be better for farmers. And I think this will make our distributor life easier. Maybe the last thing I would like to add, we choose the specific marker we are using mainly because we felt that they can address improved yield during a rough condition.

Actually, when -- if the weather is optimal, the effect of the microbes exists but it's not -- it won't be as good as when there is some drought or maybe the weather is not optimal. If there is concern that maybe next year there will -- there might be still some drought, again, if there is no rain, nothing can grow. But if it will be something in between, the efficacy of our product is actually one of the reasons to use it in order to address this challenging weather condition.

Ben Klieve

Got you. That makes sense. One more from me and I'll get back in the queue. Over at the end of your comments, you talked about the opportunities in developing seed technologies, I think you specifically mentioned tomato and soy, but I'm sure you're working on other things as well. I'm curious if you could classify how you think about going to market with that down the road? I mean, are you looking to develop unique trades and license those trades to the big ag players? Are you looking to potentially get into -- the sale of seed? How do you really see commercializing that opportunity down the road?

Ofer Haviv

It's a very good question. This is something that we are also evaluating. And is maybe one of the reasons why our seed activity is still under a division structure and not in a separate subsidiary. I intend to believe, and this will be my recommendation that we should find the field where we are focusing on the end product while the -- our competitive advantage, given the technology level of genomics.

And I'll give you exactly where we already implemented support. This is our subsidiary Canonic, which end product is medical cannabis. But the reason that we are operating in this field is because of our strength, the technology strength, in cannabis genomics. And in this case, we can even target all of our activity to reach the end product, which is the medical cannabis itself, and not just to support the cannabis growers or a Company that is focusing on -- that they are selling the end product.

Developing the technology that we're talking about, the most advanced genome editing technology that you can think of, yes, we can then use it for the big seed companies and enter into some licensing agreement. My preference will be, let's find the type of product, and as an example, it could be a tentative protein. And the Company that we''ll establish will focus on bringing to the market the end products and the -- our competitional -- and our competitive advantage over the Company will be the technology in the level of the crop genomics.

We can think about different types of tomato, you can think about maybe bananas with high protein content or a tomato with high vitamin, I mean, but really, I would prefer to focus on the end product and using the technology as the engine to drive the success. Is this the rest of your question?

Ben Klieve

Yeah, yeah. No. That's a -- it's a -- there are multiple directions that could certainly go, and that was very helpful. We'll stay tuned there. Thanks for taking my questions. That does it for me, and I'll get back in the queue.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question is from Nathan Weinstein of Aegis Capital. Please go ahead.

Nathan Weinstein

Good morning, Ofer and Dorit. Thanks for taking my questions. If we could start with Canonic and specifically the market that you'll be launching into. Maybe you could speak broadly about the medical cannabis market in Israel, how it's trending? And then have any -- have there been any impacts on the pandemic in terms of the use patterns and behaviors with medical cannabis?

Ofer Haviv

So the medical cannabis market in Israel is Growth fast. We are talking about an I think 180,000 patients if I'm not wrong and if they keep going. It's regulated and -- by the Israeli government. But maybe one of the most important things that they would like to add to the discussion is that I think last week or two weeks ago, there's government approval for cannabis companies in Israel to export their product, or their variety or their seeds abroad.

And this is the open new market abroad for Canonic and Company in the cannabis field. I think that the cannabis market in Israel is third in size in the world; the first one in the USA, then Canada, and, I think, then Israel, so it's quite a significant market. And I think that in the last press release of Canonic, there are some details inside that cover this type of question.

Nathan Weinstein

Great. Thank you. And just one follow-up for me and switching gears to Biomica with the preclinical trials for the IBD program. Are results expected in the back half of the year? Maybe you could help us think about what to expect from that and what you'll plan to share at that time.

Ofer Haviv

Okay. In this program, we select few a sets of microbe. Each one of them contains around up to 4 microbes, which -- or including the type of function that I started to believe can address the IBD disease. And we are giving those sets of microbes to [Indiscernible]. We're doing it in a very well-known lab in the U.S. and we are waiting to receive the results.

And based on these results, assuming they will be positive as we all expected, we are planning to initiate clinical trials next year in this program, and, probably, this time we're planning to do it in the States, not 100% sure that we will do it in the States, but this will be the basis for a clinical trial. And then that could be a very interesting situation for Biomica that the end of next year this Company will have 2 programs in a clinical trial that validates microbes for a very, very important entity.

Nathan Weinstein

Thank you, Ofer. I appreciate you taking my question. That was very helpful.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Geoff Gilbert of Inukshuk. Please go ahead.

Geoff Gilbert

Hello, Ofer.

Ofer Haviv

Hi.

Geoff Gilbert

Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to echo your thanks to Martin and wish him the best in retirement. As well I would like to thank you [Indiscernable] for taking the helm and look forward to her leadership. Additionally, Ofer, I thank you for -- and we welcome your strategic announcement this morning.

I know we've talked about that in the past few years, and look forward to seeing what comes from your investigation on the values and which subsidiaries you choose. I just had a couple of book-keeping questions on cash burn, if you expect next year. I know it's always off and also dependent on whether or not the IPO happens or not.

But if -- with any of the ramping of commercialization, do you expect the cash burn to significantly increase in 2022? And additionally, you mentioned upcoming milestones in a couple of subsidiaries, whether or not those are affiliated with any cash payments from partners, or they're just advancements in the pipelines. Thank you.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you for your wording with respect to Martin. It's a reason of course makes us highly appreciate these. I definitely seeing that in marketing contribution to Evogene is tremendous. I think that parting condition to the biotech industry usually, was quite significant. And I'm really excited to work with a rate that she presents and bringing in new energy to the Company.

And I'm sure that together, we are going to take Evogene to the next phase of development. With assess -- with respect to your question, I think that people that are following Evogene know that we are very cautious with our burn rates s and usually, we are trying to make sure that it will address our targets and needs. I think that one of the reasons that we want to take also our subsidiary to the public markets is to raise the money in the private placement.

In addition, to have a separate valuation process, it also will allow those companies to prosper faster compared to them based only on Evogene funding it on its own, especially Company that such as the Biomedical. Let's say, when you're entering into the clinical trials, the amount of money you need is quite significant and yet the valuation of course jumped significantly, but also the amount of money you need to invest.

So I think that we are also taking into consideration these items in total consideration, how to prioritize, and who is the Company that we are going to take to the market first. I think that the next year, yes, their awesome milestone is expected to be achieved. Some of them start from collaborations agreement, but not all of them.

And I think that where our programs are, especially in Biomica and AgPlenus, this is 2 Company that their program out in the stage is next year, they will allow us to enter into a significant collaboration agreement that, hopefully, we can also lead to payment to Evogene and they can help us in funding the rest of our activity.

In addition, yes, Lavie Bio, maybe the numbers won't be significant and we are expecting to see higher numbers coming during 2023, but seeing that the economic, the numbers could be a little bit more immaterial and it also will inject cash to the Company to cover its expenses. Dorit, would you like to add something about it?

Dorit Kreiner

No. I think you said summarized it correctly and we will give the full estimation with respect to the burn rate in our financial for the end of the year.

Geoff Gilbert

Thank you very much for taking my question.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you.

Operator

If there are any additional questions, [Operator Instructions]. Please stand by while we poll for more questions. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand over the call to Kenny Green of Edison Group to address write-in questions. Please, go ahead.

Kenny Green

Thank you, Operator. We've had a lot of writing questions, but most of them have been answered over the course of the call. One question we haven't addressed is about CRISPR. What is Evogene's direction with CRISPR through the consortium or independently? And will we introduce it for testing in humans?

Ofer Haviv

What we are doing in CRISPR, apart from the consortium is really to improve the -- what is called the guided RNA. These are the DNA fragments that are actually responsible for where you do the modification and the DNA itself and you want to do the modification in the specific place that you were targeting, and only there. And this is one of the problems that people that are using this technology are facing today, that they edit is not necessarily in the place they were targeting it and this could be a very significant problem, especially when you're using this technology for humans.

There are a few directions where you can use this technology for humans. I I think that -- I hope that our audience is familiar with what is called TIKA, where you are -- for people that suffer from cancer, you're taking out certain cells, you do some modification on the cells and then you return them back to the patient and now these T cells can fight better against cancer. This is an example where you can use genome editing in order to achieve the target. And if you -- the system you have is much more accurate and much more -- with higher efficacy, this could be quite a significant improvement. The companies operating in this field will be more than happy to put their hands on it. And this is just 1 example where you can use gene [Indiscernible] for humans and seeing that what we are trying to solve using AI technology could be very beneficial for this type of Company.

Kenny Green

Okay. Ofer, thank you very much. The rest of the questions have already been addressed throughout the call, so I will hand them back to the Operator.

Operator

Thank you. Before I ask Mr. Ofer Haviv to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind participants that a replay of this call is scheduled to begin 2 hours after the conference. In the U.S., please call 1-888-3269310. In Israel, please call 0-3925-5 901. Internationally, please call 9723-9255-901. Mr. Haviv, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Ofer Haviv

Yes. Thank you. Thank you all for joining the call today. We all look forward to updating you on our progress over the next few months. Thank you. And good day.

Operator

Thank you This concludes Evogene's Second Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.


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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Evogene Reports Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evogene-reports-second-quarter-2021-110000165.html

- Evogene's management provides update on its plans for unlocking the value of its subsidiaries

- Conference call and webcast: today, August 11, 2021, 9:00 am ET

REHOVOT, Israel, Aug. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company targeting to revolutionize life-science product discovery and development across several market segments, announced today its financial results for the first half and the second quarter of 2021, ended June 30, 2021.

Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "As Evogene's subsidiaries continue to advance and mature, we feel that now is the time to introduce our strategy of how we will bring increased shareholder value in the near term from our subsidiaries.

Our starting point is that each of our subsidiaries contains substantial internal value, created through its rapidly developing pipelines powered by Evogene's unique computational predictive biology technology, the CPB platform. Our technology is available to each of our subsidiaries for their fields of focus and provides a substantial advantage for dealing with the challenges normally faced by life-science companies, such as high failure rates and long time to market.

We now see significant inherent value developing within each of our subsidiaries and believe that valued separately, these companies would result in a far greater combined market value for Evogene. We believe that one way to achieve this in a manner that will be beneficial to our shareholders is to turn one or more of our subsidiaries into public companies that will trade independently of Evogene. Among the paths that we are exploring, is the distribution of a portion of Evogene's holdings in one or more of those subsidiaries to our shareholders.

Of course, the decision if, when, and how, to spin-off a subsidiary company will depend on many considerations, including our goal of ensuring maximum value creation for shareholders as well as market conditions, the subsidiary's financial needs, pipeline maturity, valuation, applicable regulations, etc."

Concluded Mr. Haviv, "2021 is turning out to be a key strategic year for unlocking value at Evogene and its subsidiaries and I look forward to providing further updates as we advance on our strategy."

Main Activities, Advancements and Upcoming Milestones

Biomica

1st half of the year

Impressive pre-clinical data released for its microbiome therapeutic candidate BMC128 in immuno-oncology. BMC128, in combination with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICI), in a breast cancer mouse model, demonstrated pronounced anti-tumor activity as manifested in an increase of almost 50% in Objective Response Rate, in comparison to ICI alone.

Additional positive pre-clinical results for BMC128, this time in melanoma, significantly increasing anti-tumor activity in combination with ICI, which could indicate the potential of BMC128 to become a best-in-class treatment of various cancer tumors.

In preparation for its first-in-human proof-of-concept clinical trial in its immuno-oncology program, Biomica has initiated the scale-up processes, moved to GMP production of BMC128 and applied for regulatory approval.

2nd half of the year

Expect to initiate its first-in-human proof-of-concept clinical trial in its immuno-oncology program.

Expect results for the pre-clinical trial in its IBD program.

Canonic

1st half of the year

Production and distribution agreements in place for expected commercialization of first product in the MetaYield program in Israel in 2022.

Announced the joint development of novel medical cannabis products with Cannbit-Tikum Olam, as part of Canonic's Precise product program.

2nd half of the year

Continue preparation, including selection of the final varieties, towards commercialization of first generation MetaYield premium products.

Focused R&D efforts on next generation MetaYield products.

Expect to identify lines that exhibit distinct effect in model systems for reducing pain or inflammation, a milestone in the Precise product program.

AgPlenus

1st half of the year

Considerable progress made in the collaboration with Corteva to develop novel herbicides.

Continued development and testing of additional compounds in the internal herbicide program.

Positive results in a Proof-of-Concept experiment for developing a resistance trait for a herbicide candidate targeting APTH1 (AgPlenus Target Herbicide 1), its leading novel Mode-of-Action for herbicides. Results demonstrate the ability to generate in target crops a resistance trait to herbicides targeting APTH1. This is a significant milestone, as resistance traits enable farmers to kill weeds without damaging the commercial crop.

2nd half of the year

Advance strategic collaboration with Corteva.

Expand product pipeline with an aim to achieve a lead phase for additional candidates targeting APTH1.

Advance commercialization efforts for APTH1.

Lavie Bio

1st half of the year

Product pipeline advancement with LAV. 211, bio stimulant for spring wheat and LAV. 311/312 bio-fungicide for grapes, at its core.

Commercial trials for lead bio-stimulant, LAV.211, towards expected launch in 2022. Advancement of formulation and product readiness.

Commercial team expansion with the appointment of a VP Commercial, building the path to market in North America.

2nd half of the year

Continue preparations towards expected commercial launch of lead bio-stimulant LAV.211 in 2022, which is expected to include engagement with a distribution partner.

Advance an additional season of multi-location field trials in Europe and U.S. for lead bio fungicide, LAV.311/312. In addition, conduct trials for testing potential expansion of the use of this bio fungicide to additional lucrative crops.

Added Mr. Haviv, "We look forward to the continued success and developments of our subsidiaries, while implementing our very exciting strategy in the coming months."

Consolidated Financial Results Summary

Cash position: Evogene maintains a strong financial position for its activities with $65.4 million in consolidated cash, cash related accounts, bank deposits and marketable securities as of June 30, 2021, of which $10.6 million of Evogene's consolidated cash is appropriated to its subsidiary, Lavie Bio.

During the first half of 2021, the consolidated net cash usage was approximately $11.3 million, or $8.9 million, if excluding Lavie Bio. These sums exclude $28 million net raised through Evogene's at-the-market, or ATM, offerings and exclude $0.5 million in proceeds from exercise of options.

During the second quarter the consolidated cash usage, was $5.7 million, or $4.5 million, excluding Lavie Bio. These sums exclude $0.8 million net raised through the current ATM as detailed below.

During the first half of 2021 and in particular during the second quarter, the cash burn rate was higher than during the same period in 2020, for the following reasons:

- First, during the second quarter of 2020, the burn rate was relatively low due to certain measures the company took to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company, including a temporary reduction in salary and salary-based expenditures and a cut back in secondary activities.

- Second, during the second quarter of 2021, Evogene's subsidiaries increased their investment in advancing their product development pipelines, including:

Management continues to estimate that the cash usage for the full year of 2021 will be within the anticipated range of $20-$22 million. These guidelines exclude the cash usage of Evogene's subsidiary Lavie Bio.

Under the current ATM, initiated in March 2021, Evogene raised $0.8 million net, at a weighted average price of $4.70 per share.

Research and Development ("R&D") expenses: R&D expenses for the second quarter of 2021, which are reported net of grants received, were $5.0 million, in comparison to $3.9 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase in R&D expenses was mainly attributed to the product development activities of the Company and its subsidiaries, as mentioned above.

Business Development ("BD") expenses: Business Development expenses were $0.7 million for the second quarter of 2021, in comparison to $0.5 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase was attributed mainly to Canonic's and Lavie Bio's preparations towards expected launch of their first products in 2022.

General and Administrative ("G&A") expenses: General and Administrative expenses for the second quarter of 2021 were $1.8 million, in comparison to $1.1 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase was attributed to the increase of the costs of directors' and officers' insurance policies.

Operating loss: Operating loss for the second quarter of 2021 was $7.4 million in comparison to $5.2 million in the second quarter of 2020.

Net loss: The net loss for the second quarter of 2021 was $6.9 million in comparison to a net loss of $4.8 million during second quarter of 2020.

***

Conference Call & Webcast Details:

Date: August 11, 2021
Time: 9:00 am EST; 16:00 Israel time
Dial-in number:1-888-281-1167 toll free from the United States, or +972-3-918-0609 internationally
Webcast: Link available at www.evogene.com

Replay Information: A replay of the conference call will be available approximately two hours following the completion of the call.

To access the replay, please dial 1-888-326-9310 toll free from the United States, or +972-3-925-5901 internationally. The replay will be accessible through August 13, 2021, and an archive of the webcast will be available on the Company's website.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
AgPlenus highlights encouraging Proof of Concept testing results from APH1

Jul. 06, 2021 9:25 AM ETEvogene Ltd. (EVGN)

By: Aakash Babu, SA News Editor

Evogene (NASDAQ:EVGN) subsidiary AgPlenus has achieved positive results in a Proof of Concept (POC) testing of a resistance trait for its leading novel Mode-of-Action ((MoA)) herbicide product candidate APH1.

The company highlighted that, in earlier studies, APH1 demonstrated effective control over a broad panel of weeds at commercial dose rates, including control over weeds that are known to have resistance to existing herbicides.

The next step in the development of a resistance trait is to attempt to modify soybean plants to establish resistance to APH1, AgPlenus said.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
AgPlenus Announces Positive Results for a Herbicide Resistance Trait to its Leading Herbicide Product Candidate

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/agplenus-announces-positive-results-herbicide-113000447.html

Greenhouse proof-of-concept testing demonstrates resistance of modified model plants to AgPlenus' APH1 herbicide candidate

REHOVOT, Israel, July 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- AgPlenus Ltd., a company designing effective, sustainable crop protection products by leveraging computational biology and chemistry, and a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), announced today that it has achieved positive results in a Proof of Concept (POC) testing of a resistance trait for its leading novel Mode-of-Action (MoA) herbicide product candidate, APH1.

Greenhouse testing of APH1 – modified tobacco plants with resistance trait vs unmodified control
Greenhouse testing of APH1 – modified tobacco plants with resistance trait vs unmodified control
The preferred agricultural practice in field crops is utilizing herbicides that only affect weeds, and not the commercial crop. Among other benefits, this allows farmers to apply the herbicide during the growing season without risk to the commercial crop. Therefore, there is importance in developing herbicides to which commercial crops have inherent tolerance, or for which resistance can be developed. Today's announcement focuses on the progress in developing a resistance trait to AgPlenus' leading herbicide candidate, APH1.

As previously disclosed, in earlier studies, APH1 demonstrated effective control over a broad panel of weeds at commercial dose rates, including control over weeds that are known to have resistance to existing herbicides.[1] The achievement of the milestone now being reported follows the conclusion of greenhouse tests demonstrating that model plants modified with a resistance trait, and treated with APH1, were resistant to it, showing no damage after application. These results indicate the potential for developing commercial crops with herbicide resistance to APH1, expanding its potential use to additional commercial crops. As previously disclosed, corn and other cereals already exhibit inherent tolerance to APH1, while additional important target crops, such as soybean, do not. Therefore, development of a resistance trait to APH1 can facilitate the potential offering of APH1 to those additional crops.

Herbicides play an important role in global food supply, with the global herbicide market estimated to reach $34 billion in 2022.[2] Over the last several decades, the increasing use of existing MoA herbicides, along with the extremely limited introduction of new MoA herbicides, has resulted in weeds that are developing increased resistance to the currently available commercial products. The key solution to the emergence of herbicide-resistance in weeds is the development and application of new MoA herbicides.[3]

AgPlenus' herbicide program focuses on the discovery and targeting of new MoAs to overcome herbicide resistance issues. AgPlenus' herbicide candidate APH1 is the first chemical compound addressing a novel MoA from this program to reach the 'Lead' stage.1 This MoA is not present in higher organisms such as mammals, which may favorably impact its potential safety profile.

In parallel, AgPlenus is working on developing crops resistant to its new MoA herbicides, to expand the potential of their commercial application. Crops that are resistant to herbicides enable the implementation of weed management practices that improve yield and profitability while lowering the environmental impact.[4] The use of herbicide resistant crops is a common practice in the U.S., and approximately 90% of the soybeans and corn grown in the U.S. are resistant to existing commercial herbicides.[5]

To achieve this POC, AgPlenus transformed tobacco plants to express a protein that made them resistant to APH1. These modified plants were grown in a greenhouse and sprayed with a high dose of APH1, equivalent to 2 kg/ha. Modified tobacco plants showed no harm from this application while the control plants were heavily damaged.

The next step in the development of a resistance trait is to attempt to modify soybean plants to establish resistance to APH1 in this important commercial crop.

Douglas Eisner, CEO of AgPlenus, stated: "The results of this POC experiment demonstrate the feasibility of developing seeds for commercial crops that are resistant to our herbicide candidate, APH1, potentially broadening the market for APH1 to a wider range of crops. AgPlenus intends to leverage the success of this POC experiment to expand our product offerings. We are looking forward to the next developmental stage, moving from the model tobacco plant to soybean plants, representing an important potential market segment for APH1."

Ofer Haviv, Chairman of AgPlenus and CEO of Evogene, stated: "I am excited to see AgPlenus achieve such a significant milestone in the development of one of the most desired products in crop protection – a new MoA herbicide and a seed that is resistant to it. This success is most certainly the result of AgPlenus' unique computational approach to crop protection development, based on the use of Evogene's ChemPass AI engine. I look forward to seeing the continued development of these product candidates and others in the coming year."

About AgPlenus Ltd.

AgPlenus is designing effective and sustainable crop protection products by leveraging predictive biology and chemistry. The Company aims to develop crop protection products: herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and crop enhancers. AgPlenus has ongoing collaborations with industry leaders such as BASF and Corteva. AgPlenus is a subsidiary of Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN, TASE: EVGN). For more information, please visit www.agplenus.com.
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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Evogene Announces Ms. Sarit Firon to become Evogene's Chairperson of the Board

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evogene-announces-ms-sarit-firon-110000471.html

Long-term Chairperson Martin Gerstel not standing for re-election

REHOVOT, Israel, June 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ —Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company aiming to revolutionize life-science product development across several market segments, announced today that its Board of Directors has resolved to appoint Ms. Sarit Firon to serve as Chairperson of the Board following, and subject to, her re-election as a Director at Evogene's upcoming Annual General Meeting. Mr. Martin Gerstel, Evogene's current Chairperson, recently informed the Board that after almost two decades as the Chairperson, he does not intend to stand for re-election.

Mr. Martin Gerstel said: "I am extremely proud of Evogene's journey from its establishment to where we are today. We have developed unique and broadly applicable computational predictive biology capabilities, leading to promising and rapidly developing product pipelines in multiple life science-based markets. Having served on the Board of Directors since the company's founding I believe it is now the right time for me to pass the reins to someone else and therefore have decided not to stand for re-election. Having had the pleasure of working with Sarit since her initial election to the board in 2016, I have no doubt that she is the right person to serve as our next Chairperson. I enthusiastically look forward to supporting her efforts in entry into her new role."

Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO, stated: "I would like to thank Martin for his leadership and vision as our Chairperson and his invaluable contributions to Evogene's development for almost two decades. I also want to personally thank him for his guidance and support to me in my role as President and CEO."

Mr. Haviv continued: "We are delighted to have Ms. Sarit Firon assume this new leadership position at Evogene. Sarit is one of Israel's most accomplished investors and is well known for helping to build companies and bring them to IPOs and acquisitions. Sarit brings to Evogene more than 27 years of global investment and operational experience across Silicon Valley, New York and Tel-Aviv. She has held numerous operational and leadership roles, serving as Chairperson and board member, CEO and CFO at prominent high-tech companies. Sarit has served as a director with Evogene since August 2016 and knows Evogene and its subsidiaries very well, which will ensure a smooth transition into her new role as Chairperson of the Board."

"I am honored to have been given the opportunity to lead Evogene as its new Chairperson. Evogene is an extraordinary company with highly differentiated predictive discovery and development capabilities and an impressive product pipeline through its subsidiaries," said Ms. Sarit Firon. "I look forward to working with my fellow directors, Ofer, and the entire senior management team to take Evogene and its subsidiaries to the next level in value creation and recognition of such by the capital markets."

Sarit Firon is a Partner of the Team8 Group and Managing Partner of Team8 Capital, the investment arm of the group. Prior to joining Team8 Capital, Sarit was Managing Partner of Cerca Partners, which invested in tech companies in the Israeli ecosystem and was part of some of Israel's most notable acquisitions and IPOs, including ArmisFiverr (NYSE: FVRR), Innoviz, Demisto and others. She also led the seed round of Datorama, taking an active board member role until the company's US $800 million acquisition by Salesforce. She serves as a Director on the Board of Perion Network Ltd. (NASDAQ: PERI).

Previously, Sarit held CEO and CFO positions in different technology companies, leading them through IPOs and M&As. Among other roles, she served as CFO at MediaMind during its Nasdaq IPO and acquisition by DG Corp for US $517 million. She holds a B.A. in accounting and economics from Tel-Aviv University in Israel.

About Evogene Ltd.:

Evogene (NASDAQ: EVGN, TASE: EVGN) is a leading computational biology company focused on revolutionizing product discovery and development in multiple life-science based industries, including human health and agriculture, through the use of our broadly applicable Computational Predictive Biology (CPB) platform. The CPB platform, incorporating a deep understanding of biology leveraged through the power of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, has been designed to computationally discover and uniquely guide the development of life-science products based on microbes, small molecules and genetic elements. Utilizing the CPB platform, Evogene and its subsidiaries are now advancing product pipelines for human microbiome-based therapeutics through Biomica Ltd., medical cannabis through Canonic Ltd., ag-biologicals through Lavie Bio Ltd., ag-chemicals through AgPlenus Ltd., and ag-solutions for castor oil production through Casterra Ltd. For more information, please visit www.evogene.com.

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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Evogene: Bullish With Canonic's Entry Into Israeli Medical Cannabis Markets

Jun. 16, 2021 3:26 AM ETEvogene Ltd. (EVGN)

Summary
Canonic, a subsidiary of Evogene, will bring its unique cannabis products to the Israeli cannabis market in 2022.
The company has been hard at work deciphering the cannabis genome and breeding special strains to treat specific conditions, like chronic pain and inflammation.

Evogene’s Q1-2021 financial statements reveal plenty of cash and assets to achieve its current strategy.

Evogene’s stock price has been up 262.75% over 12 months and is currently on an uptrend.

I still rate the stock as bullish and give it a short-term target price of $6 per share.

When I last covered Evogene (EVGN), its stock had recently hit its 52-week high of $10.24. Since then, its stock price has been testing lows and is currently sitting in the $3.70 to $4.20 price channel. I recommend continuing a long-hold strategy and offer a short-term options strategy as well. I still rate the company as bullish and encourage the cannabis minded investor to consider the ground-breaking work of Canonic and its future potential, as well as Evogene’s overall value.



I recently caught up with Canonic’s CEO, Dr. Arnon Heyman, who addressed the company’s unique innovations and future plans. The company is deciphering the cannabis genome and applying its findings to genetic breeding with an eye towards medical effectiveness. One advantage for the company is its vast database of cannabis genotypes and large genetics catalogue. Its proprietary strains have the potential to change the cannabis game in terms of potency, yield, and effectiveness.

In 2022, its cannabis products will be available in the Israeli medical cannabis market with the help of its distribution partnership and collaboration with Tikun Olam-Cannbit. Its products will be in the form of dried flower and extracts. The 1st generation strains have been bred to enter the premium product class, while the next generation strains will be further tailored to treat specific ailments, like chronic pain and inflammation. After introducing its products to market, the company has plans in the future to bring its products and genetics into international medical cannabis markets; Europe and North America are in its sights.

Canonic is developing two product families: Metayield and Precise. The aim of Metayield is to increase the total number of active cannabinoids on the plant’s surface. Through breeding and genetic deciphering, Precise looks to produce specific cannabinoid profiles to treat specific symptoms, thus being more medically effective. The company considers the full spectrum of cannabinoids and each one’s medical application. The genetics are bred to produce very specific plant traits with a view to the medical outcomes of its cannabinoid profile.


**Valuations found on www.TIKR.com

Revenues from benchmark payments remain constant for Evogene from quarter to quarter. According to Evogene’s Q1-2021 discussion, two of its subsidiaries, Canonic and Lavie Bio, will have products at the market in 2022 and the company expects their revenues to increase. Meanwhile, the company has plans for Direct-To-Market offerings. The company currently has no bank debt and its assets far outweigh its liabilities. The company has plenty of financial runway to continue fulfilling its business strategy.

The cannabis investor, at this time, must judge the company based on its potential value and growth. Its Q1-2021 discussion mentions the progress of each subsidiary and their potential for products and collaborations. In its Q4-2020 transcript, the company estimates the Israeli medical cannabis market to be worth $260M and to grow up to $830M per year. Canonic expects the number of Israeli cannabis medical users to increase significantly each year.

Evogene’s stock price has gained 262.75% over the last 12 months and is currently on an uptrend


1-year price performance chart from www.StockCharts.com

The company’s stock price hit a 52-week high of $10.24 back in mid-February. After that point, the price began to downtrend over the next three months. The price has tempted its lows and is back on an uptrend. It is still up 249% over the last 12 months. Momentum for the stock has been increasing and it is a daily mover.

18% of the stock is owned by large institutions. ADX buy signals are many and will continue. Even though the price was down-trending, one can see on the chart that it constantly tests upper resistance levels with break-out rallies.



30-day price performance chart from www.StockCharts.com

On the 30-day chart, one can better see the current uptrend and break-outs. The price is up 4.3% over the last month. It is trading near its 20/50/200-day averages. $4 per share seems to be the next resistance level. I set the short-term target price to $6 per share and long-term price between $10 and $15. The ADX line and Bollinger Bands currently indicate another spike. We will see if the stock finds a higher price channel soon.

Take a long position with Evogene and play call options for short-term gains
If the stock returns to the $10 mark, then the movement is 160% of its current price. The long-hold strategy is low-risk and has great potential for growth. For short-term profit, one may look at summer call options with a strike price of $5 in July and August. The idea would be to sell the option at $10 or $20 profit per contract. This would be an income strategy. There is higher risk to playing the call options and no guarantee that the stock will hit the strike price within the timeframe. The wise investor may watch such a short-term strategy and cash it in early when there is upward movement in price.

Risk: Moderate to Low
There is no risk of liquidity for the company. It has plenty of runway for its business operations and current strategy. There are environmental risks to its business, namely the turbulent politics in Israel that can threaten infrastructure and daily life. The business and the cannabis market can be affected as well by these conditions.

The medical cannabis market is recently emerging in Israel and it is yet to be seen how much the market will be worth. Judging from other places where medical legalization has occurred, the growth will be robust. At the same time, these are the risks that investors should consider.

The long-hold strategy has low risk, since the stock has been on an overall long-term uptrend. With the introduction of products to market, its revenues will increase, as well as their valuation. Stock prices can fluctuate a lot based on overall market conditions. Currently, the threat of inflation is negatively influencing the markets.

The short-term call option strategy has moderate risk. If the price falls, the call option becomes worthless. If the price falls too far, the strike price can fall out of plausibility for the strike date, thus the option losing. The idea on the call options strategy is to sell the position when it gains $10 or $20 instead of waiting for it to be in-the-money. I would recommend some combination of long and short-term strategies.

Conclusion
Evogene’s Canonic is firm in its plans to enter the Israeli medical cannabis markets in 2022. The company will bring its innovative cannabis genetics in the form of dried flower and extracts. Its research has focused on deciphering the cannabis genome and breeding strains with specific characteristics, including plant traits and curative effects. Evogene’s financials show increasing progress towards its business strategy. The company will increase its revenue and valuation as new products are introduced to market. I recommend a long-hold strategy for the stock and a short-term call options strategy for extra gains.

This article was written by

Alan Sumler

Disclosure: I am/we are long EVGN. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.


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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Evogene Ltd. (EVGN) CEO Ofer Haviv on Q1 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

May 26, 2021 2:32 PM ETEvogene Ltd. (EVGN)

Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ:EVGN) Q1 2021 Results Conference Call May 26, 2021 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ofer Haviv - Chief Executive Officer

Arnon Heyman - CEO Canonic

Dorit Kreiner - Chief Financial Officer

Ido Dor - CEO, Lavie Bio

Conference Call Participants

Kristen Kluska - Cantor Fitzgerald

Brett Reiss - Janney Montgomery

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Evogene's First Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. All participants are present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, May 26, 2021.

Before we begin, I would like to caution that certain statements made during this earnings conference call by Evogene's management will constitute forward-looking statements that relate to future events. I encourage you to review Evogene's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and read the note regarding forward-looking statements in today's earnings releases, which states that statements made in the earnings releases and in the similar way on this earnings conference call that are not historical facts may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For example, Evogene is using forward-looking statements. In this call when it discusses its expected paths to value creation, its and its' subsidiaries expected trials, studies, product advancements, commercializations, launches, pipelines, milestones, potential collaborations and other plans for 2021 and 2022, the potential advantages of its technology and its anticipated entry into new fields of activity.

All forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of the announcement of results. Many of the factors that impact whether forward-looking statements will come through or beyond the control of Evogene and may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. Evogene is under no obligation to update publicly or alter our forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law we expressly disclaim any obligation to do so. More detailed information about the risk factors potentially adversely impacting our performance can be found in our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

That said, I would now like to turn over the call to Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s CEO. Ofer, please go ahead.

Ofer Haviv

Thank you, and good day, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for our first quarter 2021 conference call. Joining me today are, Mrs. Dorit Kreiner, our CFO; and Mr. Ido Dor, the CEO of our subsidiary Lavie Bio, which focused on ag-biologicals, the fastest growing segment in the ag-industry today.

Following my initial remarks, Ido will provide an update about Lavie Bio and following Ido the weekly summaries Evogene financial results for the first quarter 2021. We will then open the call for your question.

My remarks in today's call, we focus on our strategy for value creation to the Evogene subsidiary and its recognition by the capital markets. Before I reach this topic, I would like to recap the main topics I covered in the previous analyst call.

Then, our broadly applicable Computational Predictive Biology platform, the CPB, and the three engines rely on this platform MicroBoost AI, ChemPass AI and GeneRator AI. If they didn't many times, we believe these capabilities provide a significant competitive advantage in the discovery and development of life-science based products in multiple industries.

The CPB platform and the three engines aim to reduce time and cost of product development and most importantly to improve the provision for success to reach commercial product.

Second, our proven ability to create subsidiaries in multiple life-science based fields by utilizing the CPB platform industry engine, which is subsidiary demonstrating its ability to rapidly discover and develop very promising product pipelines. We are pleased to see our subsidiaries receiving growing recognition for this pipeline by major companies in the field of focus.

Lastly, I stated our intention to continue to initiate new activities in additional life-science based fields. In our last call, I mentioned by this new field, we are currently evaluating including using MicroBoost AI to identify microbes for the aquaculture industry and using ChemPass AI for drug optimization for human health.

Moving now to what I would like to focus on today, value creation within the evidence subsidiaries and market recognition of this value. Investing last time the best companies such as those within the Evogene Group present both financial advantages and risk for their investors.

The primary advantage is that in general if successful life-science based products can be very profitable. In addition and very importantly for investors, companies with promising life-science based products in the pipeline, like Evogene subsidiaries can have very significant market value long before the products are actually commercialized.

On the other hand, the primary risk in investing in life-science based companies is that such products typically have very high failure rate. Furthermore, those that are successful generally take a relatively long time to be commercialized.

With respect to their advantage, as stated, each of our subsidiaries has a very promising product pipeline and the activities are aiming to advance the product candidates towards commercialization. In 2021 and 2022, all our subsidiaries have a significant milestone for pipeline advancements and some of them are even expected to reach first product launch.

We believe that announcing the achievement of such milestones as they are reached will enable the capital markets to properly appreciate the value created by the subsidiaries and will also be reflected in Evogene's value recognition.

Turning to the risk, we believe that the technology utilized by our subsidiaries, which relied on Evogene unique technology, provides a substantial advantage with respect to dealing with the challenges of high failure rates, and time to market.

We believe that, the power of the technology is demonstrated and can be recognized to the rapid progress of our subsidiary, discovery and development pipeline. Moreover, any strategic collaboration such as between AgPlenus and Corteva, or equity investments in a subsidiary by subsidiary partner, such as Corteva's investment in Lavie Bio, is a vote of confidence in the unique advantages of our technology.

As previously disclosed, some of our subsidiaries are targeting to achieve additional strategic collaborations during 2021 and 2022. We expect that such collaborations will enable the capital markets to further recognize the unique technological value of our subsidiaries, thus reflecting on Evogene's value, as well.

I'm pleased to report that both Evogene and our subsidiaries have been progressing in accordance with the plan, and I would like to highlight the following events that took place since the beginning of the year.

Biomica, Evogene's subsidiary focusing on developing innovative microbiome-based therapeutics, announced additional positive pre-clinical results in its immuno-oncology program demonstrating efficacy of its live biotherapeutic product consortium BMC128, this time in melanoma.

As demonstrated in our previous slide, the treatment with BMC128 in combination with immune-checkpoint inhibitors, immune therapy, significantly enhanced anti-tumor activity. We are very excited with the results of this study, demonstrating that the effectiveness of BMC128 in treating additional set of solid cancer tumors. We look forward to providing incremental updates as we work towards the first human proof-of-concept clinical trial later this year.

Canonic Ltd, our subsidiary focused on the development of medical cannabis products announced that it entered into an agreement for the production and distribution in Israel of medical cannabis products with Tikun Olam-Cannbit Pharmaceuticals Ltd. These agreements are expected to support the successful launch of Canonic's first product in 2022.

Evogene Ag-Seed division focusing on discovery and development of seed traits announced a collaboration agreement with a U.S. company, Plastomics, targeting novel insect control trait for soybean. As part of the collaboration, Plastomics utilizing its disruptive new technology will introduce Evogene insect control gene, demonstrating new modes of action into soybean.

There was a dire need for new mode of action insect control traits and we are looking-forward to addressing it through our joint efforts.

Lavie Bio, our subsidiary, focusing on ag-biological through the introduction of microbiome-based products announced the joining of Mr. Russ Putland, as VP Commercial. Russ brings significant commercial experience to the Lavie Bio team and together with management will prepare the Company for its next phase focusing on commercializing its products, starting from 2022.

With this, I hand over to Ido, Lavie Bio's CEO. Thank you, Ido?

Ido Dor

Thank you, Ofer. I would like to begin by introducing myself. My name is Ido Dor and I serve as Lavie Bio's CEO, and I joined Evogene at the end of 2011 and held value of business and manager and related those, since 2015 I lead their biological division within Evogene, which we started off as Lavie Bio on February 2019.

My background is in engineering and I held MBA and started my career in management consulting forward roughly six years followed by additional six years in leading sales and channel organization for SAP in Israel.

I will start with a short introduction of Lavie Bio, which is addressing the need for a more sustainable food system with stronger focus on the quality of food and nutrients of the produce. In the last few years, we have seen a trend where consumers are more aware and demand better practices to drive sustainability and food quality in a way the folks influences the farm.

However, the fact that in agriculture farmer used more than $200 billion every year in fertilizer and chemicals, a core protection in order to secure production is quite significant conflict and this conflict needs to be balanced and shifted, and ag-biologicals are one of the key solutions in driving this revolution of improving the way we produce our food.

Lavie Bio is focusing on improving food quality, sustainability and ag productivity by harnessing the power of microbiome technologies to develop innovative ag-biologicals products. Ag-biologicals are externally applied products from biological sources such as microbial which are microorganisms, and naturally derived biochemicals designed to improve crop productivity. The microbiome is a sub-segment and resells to the microbial population living closer or within the plant or other organisms. These microorganisms have unique functional composition that Lavie Bio is harnessing in order to develop novelized biological products.

Lavie Bio's approach is focused on biology-driven design or BDD for the discovery optimization and development of effective stable and cost-effective microbial based ag-biologicals. Lavie Bio's BDD platform facilitate and accelerate the development of microbiome-based products through the decoding of complex microbiome/host interaction and the utilization of key genetic elements, which are functions governed this interaction for product development.

Then Evogene's technologies for the establishment of the BDD platform are the MicroBoost AI engine, a component of Evogene CPB platform and the Taxonia platform which enhances genomics informatics to develop a transformative application to agriculture acquired as part of the Corteva investment in Lavie Bio.

Lavie Bio is focused on developing two main types of products, bio-pesticide which are ag-biologicals for crop protection, addressing biotic stressors such as insect diseases and weeds. And also biostimulants, which are biological ag-biological for crop enhancements directly impacting crop yield or biotic stressors the tolerance of distance.

In 2020, we saw significant advancements in Lavie Bio product pipeline. In December 2020, Lavie Bio announced that its stimulant candidate 211, LAV211 was successfully advancing into the pre-commercial phase, following the field trials in target locations, meeting development criteria and outperforming trial controls, which include competitive benchmarks. Product launch is expected in 2022.

In October 2020, we also shared results demonstrating the power of bio-pesticide candidate LAV312 to protect grapes from Botrytis based on the results obtained from multi-location trials in target geographies. We expect this product to reach the market in 2024. For further updates on the pipeline status and advancements, I would also like to guide you to our publication from December 2020, which has a broader view of all of our products.

Since the beginning of 2021, Lavie Bio has continued to progress well with this product pipeline and it might control 2021 out, first to conduct pre-commercial trial for its bio-stimulant products for spring wheat and to finalize all the stages planned in order to commercialize in 2022. And second to continue product advancements on its bio-fungicide product for fruit rot, LAV311 and LAV312 towards regulation, which is planned to be filed in the first half to 2022.

With respect to the first milestone, the LAV211, we are in the last season before launch, working with our early farmer adaptive network, conducted commercial trials and the commercial practices in North America and specifically North Dakota. In parallel, we are working to extend the product to new course and territories and establishing the commercial tempo 2022 initial phase.

To this end, I'm very pleased with the joining of Mr. Russ Putland to our team as VP Commercial. Russ brings significant commercial experience to the Lavie Bio management team including more than 30 years of leadership within large multinational ag companies. Russ will lead Lavie Bio's commercial strategy and execution focusing on establishment, the relationship and partnership with strategic and channel partners, driving revenue for ag-biologicals, ag-stimulants and bio-pesticide product line.

With respect to the second life on our first bio-fungicide target, this year includes multiple trials in Europe, U.S. and South Africa that will help us to further improve the formulation the cost of production. We target to advance formulation and production technology by the end of the year, and we will be able to find the leading candidate regulation in the first half of 2022.

In addition, we see significant progress, which we are excited about in each of our other pipeline activities. The [mini] program corn [indiscernible] seedling diseases and bio-stimulants for crop other than wheat. I am pleased to update that our collaboration with Corteva is developing with our focus product process.

In addition, I would like to update that we are actively engaged in seeking partnerships for accelerating and expanding our product pipeline and creating new business opportunities benefiting from our robust technological capabilities. These efforts will focus on one or more of the following.

The first one is early commercialization of certain of our pipeline candidate through a partnership. And the second one is optimization of partner's candidate product using our ability platform. I will keep reflecting on the progress as we move forward with this commercial effort.

To summarize, the opportunity we found in ag-biological market for our product is unique and has significant potential. The team and I believe we are on track to meet the Company goals and are excited to be close to our first product launch.

With that I would like to turn the call over to the Dorit. Dorit?

Dorit Kreiner

Thank you, Ido. I will begin by reviewing our cash balance. Evogene maintain its strong financial position for its activities with approximately $70.1 million in consolidated cash, cash related accounts, bank deposits and marketable securities as of March 31, 2021. Approximately $11.8 million of Evogene's consolidated cash is appropriated to its subsidiary Lavie Bio.

During the first quarter of 2021, our consolidated net cash usage excluding 27.1 million net raised to at the market offerings initiated January 2021 and concluded during February 2021, was approximately 5.2 million or 4 million, if excluding Lavie Bio.

The low range case usage during the first quarter is mainly attributed to amount receipts for reimbursement of expenses for our collaborator. In March 2021, we announced a new ATM, and we had not sold any shares under this offering as of the end of the quarter. The Company does not have bank debt.

Let's now turn to the statement of operations. R&D expenses, which are reported net of grants received were approximately 4.3 million for the first quarter of 2021, including a non-cash expenses of 0.3 million for amortization of share based compensation in comparison to 4.6 million, including a non-cash expenses of 0.9 million for amortization share-based compensation in the first quarter of 2020.

In the first quarter of 2021, the actual R&D expenses slightly decreased, mainly due to the decrease in share based compensation. Business development expenses were approximately 0.6 million for the first quarter of 2021 including non-cash expenses of $0.1 million for amortization of share-based compensation in comparison to $1 million including a non-cash expenses of $0.7 million for amortization of share-based compensation in the first quarter of 2020.

General and administrative expenses for the first quarter of 2021 were $1.5 million including a non-cash expense of $0.1 million for amortization of share based compensation in comparison to $1.3 million including a non-cash expense of $0.3 million for amortization of share based compensation in the first quarter of 2020. The increase is mainly attributed to the increase of the costs of directors' and officers' insurance, partially offset by a decrease in non-cash expenses of amortization of share-based compensation.

Operating loss for the first quarter of 2021 was $6.3 million, in comparison to $6.9 million for the first quarter of 2020. The decrease in operating loss during the first quarter is attributed to the increase in revenues from collaboration agreements compared to the first quarter of 2020 and due to the decrease in aforementioned amortization of share-based compensation expenses.

The loss for the first quarter of 2021 was $7.1 million in comparison to a loss of $7.2 million during the first quarter of 2020. The slight decrease in the loss for the first quarter is attributed to the reduction in operating loss, offset by an increase in financing expenses mainly attributed to exchange rate differences and revaluation of pre-funded warrants.

With that said, we would now like to open up the call for any question you may have. Operator?

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] First question is from Kristen Kluska of Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Kristen Kluska

Thank you. Thanks everybody for taking the questions. Have some for Lavie Bio. So with the recent announced hire of Mr. Putland as VP Commercial, how are you thinking long-term across your pipeline, which markets and geographies and products might be most appropriate for you to bring forward versus out of a partner? And then what are some of the key priorities he shared for the Company upon joining?

Ido Dor

This is Ido. Well a rough person is joining to take a broad leadership of all the commercial activities. As we disclosed, the first target launch is targeted for North America, focusing on spring wheat and it's happening already in 2022. In parallel, we're working quite extensively on the second launch, which is planned there for the new generation product of bio-fungicide during 2024. Russ brings a lot of experience and knowhow from retail level from producer level and from our company levels, along more than 20 years of experience, mainly North America and then Canada and the U.S., but also in other parts of the world. Naturally, our products are targeting beyond North America and last we release also this part of the activity.

Kristen Kluska

Thanks. And then for LAV312, on the back some of the data you recently reported here. Could you talk about what the latest has been on the formulation technology and the fermentation protocol? And in light of what you've already seen here, wondering if you've is that internally established a goal of what you might hope to see with some of these changes?

Ido Dor

Yes, okay. So yes, we are working heavily on stabilizing the formulation extending the shelf life, reducing the cost of goods and also certain optimization approaches that targeting to increase the potential of the product for maybe additional crops and additional diseases.

All of that is being validated in this season across multiple trials, multiple patients in Europe and U.S. and also plans for later this year, also in the Southern Hemisphere and the experiments we conducted in South Africa

All of that should bring up to the situation where we finalize the formulation by the end of this year. So, we have few leading formulation both for LAV312 and both for LAV311. And once we finalized the leading formulations then we will choose the best of them, and these are the formulations that will be leading dossier that we are going to file in the first half of next year formulations.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Therefore, I ask Mr. Ofer Haviv to go ahead with his closing statement.

Ofer Havi

Hi, operator. We actually have some write-in questions we'd like to go through, if that's okay.

Operator

Okay. Continue with the write-in questions.

Unidentified Company Representative

Okay. So, this is Kenny Green from Edison Group. I'm part of the IR team at Evogene. So, we've had some write-in questions. I'd like to thank everybody who sent us questions for their continued interest. Our first question is about Biomica. When are we expecting to commence Biomica's first in human trials? How long would that trial be? And when do we expect those indication to results?

Ofer Haviv

Hi. This is Ofer, and I will address this question. So, Biomica is really advancing nicely with its ongoing activity with respect to the immune oncology program. The expectation is that in the second half of this year, we will initiate the first first-in-man clinical trial in this program, and we already in quite advanced stage in discussion with a few medical institution here in Israel. And the expectation is that, this study will reach to conclusion during next year and we'll allow us to initiate the next phase.

Unidentified Company Representative

Okay. Thank you. Second question about genomic. Do we intend for Canonic to receive exclusivity for their products and when can we expect Canonic's first sales?

Ofer Haviv

So, Canonic is there again, advancing very, very nicely. Actually, we just now announced the agreement with respect to producing the product and distributing it. And this is message of our confidence on reaching to our target. The original plan is to launch the product during 2022, hopefully the first part of this year, and we are feeling comfortable with this expectation. Just to remind you the first product is going to be from the MetaYield family. And the idea is to distribute this product in a different marketing channels including pharmacy. We even started with some pharmacy, as preparation for this event.

There is no expectations that there will be an exclusivity for specific pharmacy on marketing the product unless there will be fully committed to market the all quantity with the private we are looking for. But in this stage, we are not expecting for exclusivity at the first step. And as we mentioned in the past, this really market, this is just the first step. We start to look outside of Israel, as a next step forward Canonic product.

Unidentified Company Representative

Okay, thanks. Third question, Ido, it's a Lavie Bio questions. When can we expect first sales from Lavie Bio?

Ido Dor

Okay. So, the target is during the season of 2022. First product we target to sell is LAV211 and regarding specific timing along the year. So, we didn't disclosed what we are planning with respect to when we are planning to recognize the revenue. We are exploring few business models in parallel and the season is between April to November. So, somewhere on this, timeframe, I assume we will be able to disclose more, based on the model for revenue recognition that will need to apply.

Unidentified Company Representative

Okay, final write-in question back to Ofer. If you are going to publicly list one of your subsidiaries overseas, will you only look at the U.S. exchanges or other countries?

Ofer Haviv

So, when the time will come with respect to taking one of our subsidiaries public, and I'd say, it won't take too long. Probably, we will focus mainly on the American -- on the stock exchange in the state, NASDAQ probably, which this is probably the right place for a high tech and tech company like the one that we established here with the Evogene Group.

But we can also think about maybe other markets that could be relevant for the specific type of company. Now Canada used to be or maybe still one of the leading capital markets for cannabis industry. So, this is probably something that we will evaluate it as well. But the main, the major markets that we consider as places that we would like to register our companies is the New York markets and mainly NASDAQ.

Unidentified Company Representative

Okay, and that end the writing questions, and I'll hand back to the operator.

Operator

[Operator instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Before I asked Mr. Ofer Haviv, the next question is from Brett Reiss of Janney Montgomery. Please go ahead.

Brett Reiss

Thank you. The Lavie Bio commercial product that's going to be launched in 2022, are you going to have a North American distributor for that? And if so, who is it?

Ofer Haviv

We are exploring and in discussion with few optional North American distributors and we hope that we will be able to share more in the next few months.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. Before I asked Mr. Ofer Haviv to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind participants that a replay of this call is scheduled to begin two hours after the conference. In the U.S. please call 188-326-9310. In Israel, please call 03-9255-901. Internationally, please call 9723-9255-901.

Mr. Haviv, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Ofer Haviv

Yes, thank you. Thank you all for joining the call today. I look forward to updating you on our progress over the next few months. Thank you and good day everyone.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes Evogene's first quarter 2021 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.

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midastouch017 midastouch017 3 years ago
Evogene shares rise on Q1 topline beat, cash update

May 26, 2021 9:57 AM ETEvogene Ltd. (EVGN)

By: Aakash Babu, SA News Editor
Evogene shares rise (EVGN +4.2%) after the company posted first-quarter revenue that beat Wall Street estimates, and provided a cash position update.
The total revenue during the quarter increased more than 300% to $0.33M, beating analysts' average estimate by $0.03M.
Evogene had about $70.1M in consolidated cash, cash related accounts, bank deposits and marketable securities as of March 31, 2021.
The loss for the first quarter of 2021 was $7.1M, or $0.17 per share, compared to a loss of $7.2M, or $0.24 per share, for the first quarter of 2020.
The slight decrease in the quarterly loss is due to the reduction in operating loss, partially offset by an increase in financing expenses mainly owing to exchange rate differences and revaluation of pre-funded warrants, the company said.
R&D expenses were about $4.3M in the quarter versus $4.6M in the prior-year period.
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