Seed Today

Date Posted: December 2, 2008

Rehovot, Israel (December 2, 2008) – Evogene Ltd. today announced strengthening its on-going collaboration with Bayer CropScience to increase yield in rice. In June 2007, the two companies announced a collaboration to increase rice productivity and yield. Pursuant to the collaboration agreement between the companies, Bayer CropScience has recently exercised its option to exclusive licensing rights in rice to additional candidate genes discovered by Evogene.

The candidate genes, which were predicted by Evogene’s computational technology (the "ATHLETE") to improve yield, displayed yield improvement when validated by Evogene in model plants, and will be evaluated by Bayer CropScience in rice.

Evogene is a world leading developer of improved plant traits. The company’s proprietary product development platform combines state of the art computational gene discovery technology (The 'ATHLETE'), plant and field validation capabilities and unique selection systems. Evogene's current programs focus on the improvement of key plant traits, such as yield and stress tolerance, and the improvement of plants specifically for biofuel uses. Evogene has collaboration and licensing agreements with world leading companies in the agro-biotech and alternative energy industries. Evogene's headquarters are in Rehovot, Israel, and its stock is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE:EVGN). For additional information, please visit Evogene’s website at www.evogene.com.