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Rehovot, Israel (March 10, 2010) -- Evogene Ltd. announced today its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2009. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's president and CEO, stated: "We are extremely pleased to see the continuing rapid growth and development of our company. During the past year, we continued to advance under our current collaborations, entered into new collaborations with world leading seed companies, substantially increased our infrastructure and capacity and furthered the evaluation of our castor bean lines being developed for biodiesel uses.

In addition, during 2009, significant resources were allocated, and during 2010 will continue to be allocated, to enhancements and new applications for our gene discovery core technology - the ATHLETE - and to the pursuit of two new core technologies based on our proprietary genomic understandings, systems and tools."

Among Evogene's 2009 achievements:
• A new three year collaboration with Bayer CropScience AG, focusing on rice yield improvement. The agreement strengthens an existing collaboration for rice, established in 2007.
• A new collaboration with Syngenta Biotechnology for Soybean nematode (soil parasites) resistance, significantly expanding our activity in the important field of biotic stresses (e.g. diseases and insect resistance).
• Completion of a first collaboration year under the five year agreement signed with Monsanto on August 2008 and entry into the second year of the collaboration.
• Expansion of field trials in Texas and Brazil for the company's castor bean lines being developed as a feedstock for biodiesel production.
• The completion of a corporate infrastructure expansion program to substantially increase the company's R&D and administrative facilities, including construction of a new greenhouse site.
• The further building of the professional team of the company, with approximately 85% of the staff committed to research and development activities.

Revenues for the year ended December 31, 2009 were $10 million, compared to $3.4 million reported for the same period in 2008. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were $2.6 million, compared to $2.3 million for the same period in 2008. Revenues for the year ended and fourth quarters of 2008 and 2009 include revenues generated mainly under the collaboration with Monsanto.

Profit from ordinary operations for the year ended December 31, 2009 was $266 thousand, compared to a loss from ordinary operations of $4.1 million in the same period in 2008. Loss from ordinary operations for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $481 thousand, compared to a profit from ordinary operations of $836 thousand in the same period in 2008.

Included in the comprehensive loss for year ended December 31, 2009 were $4.8 million of non-cash financial expenses, compared to $247 thousand for the prior year. These non-cash charges are due primarily to the revaluation for accounting purposes of the publicly traded options issued in the 2007 IPO due to the change in market price of the Company’s ordinary shares during such time periods. After taking into account these non-cash charges, total comprehensive loss for the year ended December 31, 2009, was $3.4 million, or $0.13 per share, compared to $4.5 million, or $0.22 per share, in the same period in 2008.

Mr. Haviv continued: "With regards to our financial results, in 2009 there was a substantial growth in revenues due primarily to our collaborations with Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta. Consistent with this, a substantial portion of our research and development activities during the year were in support of these collaborations and therefore these expenses are being accounted for as cost of revenues. We anticipate that for 2010, non-collaboration research and development expenses will increase, mostly due to the planned development of the company's new core technologies.”

As of December 31, 2009, Evogene had $38.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, cash deposits and short-term marketable securities, an increase of approximately $9 million compared to $29.4 million as of December 31, 2008. This increase is mainly due to the exercise in the third quarter of 2009 of substantially all of the company's Series 1 options that were issued as part of the company’s initial public offering on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in June 2007.

About Evogene
Evogene is a world leading developer of improved plants traits for the agriculture and biofuel industries through the use of plant genomics. The company's technology platform is based on a unique computational core technology for gene discovery, the ATHLETE, and high throughput systems for gene validation. Evogene's development programs focus on the improvement of high-commercial value plant traits, such as yield, biotic and a-biotic stresses tolerance, and the improvement of plants specifically for biofuel uses. Evogene is collaborating with world leading seed companies in order to introduce its technology into key commercial crops. Evogene's headquarters are in Rehovot, Israel, and its stock is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: EVGN).

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