Press Releases

Rehovot, Israel – November 22^nd, 2011 – Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) announced today its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30^th, 2011.

Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO, stated "We are very proud of our continuing achievements under our collaborations with major seed companies. These achievements,   such as the recent milestone reached under the collaboration with Bayer CropScience for wheat and the successful completion of the third year of our five-year collaboration with Monsanto, are providing further evidence of Evogene’s position as a world leader in discovering genes targeted at improving yield and environmental stress traits. In addition to our activities in these key areas of abiotic stress, we are allocating significant resources to both expanding our plant genomic technologies to address additional challenges in product development, and to leveraging these capabilities into other major commercial areas, where they can provide the basis for successful new products."

Mr. Haviv continued, “With respect to the expansion of our genomic technologies, we believe that the addition of our recently announced Gene2Product^TM technology will add significant value to our gene discovery capabilities both in our current areas of focus and in new areas. One such area of focus relates to plant diseases and other biotic stress resistance, as demonstrated by the expansion of our collaborative work with Pioneer Hi-Bred to address rust resistance in soybean, which was announced yesterday."

Mr. Haviv concluded, “We look forward to reporting additional achievements in these and other areas as we further develop and expand our unique company."

Highlights for this quarter with respect to our collaborations include:

• Expansion of our relationship with Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont Business, addressing important soybean traits, by the signing of a new multiyear collaboration, for improving resistance to soybean rust, one of the most devastating fungal diseases in this important crop.
• Milestone achievement under our five-year wheat collaboration with Bayer CropScience AG, signed in December 2010, which includes identification of over 200,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (“SNP's”) in the wheat genome.
• Joint announcement of the successful completion of the third year of collaboration with Monsanto, covering yield and environmental stress in corn, soybean, cotton and canola.

Revenues for the first nine months of 2011 were $10.2 million, compared to $7.9 million for the same period in 2010. Revenues for the third quarter of 2011 were $3.4 million, compared to $2.6 million for the same period in 2010. At present, revenues consist primarily of research and licensing revenues generated under the company's various collaboration agreements.

Research & Development expenses for the first nine months of 2011 were $4.6 million, compared to $3.7 million for the same period in 2010. Research & Development expenses for the third quarter of 2011 were $2.0 million, compared to $1.5 million for the same period in 2010. These increases mainly relate to the development of the Gene2Product^TM computational technology, increased efforts focused on additional traits, mainly biotic tolerance traits, and the biofuel program.
In addition, Cost of Revenues consists primarily of certain research and development expenses allocated to deliverables under our various collaborations. Such Cost of Revenues for the first nine months of 2011 were $5.5 million, compared to $4.2 million for the same period in 2010. Cost of Revenues for the third quarter of 2011 were $2.0 million, compared to $1.5 million for the same period in 2010.

Loss from ordinary operations for the first nine months of 2011 was $2.4 million, compared to loss from ordinary operations of $2.1 million for the same period in 2010. Loss from ordinary operations for the third quarter of 2011 was $1.3 million, compared to loss from ordinary operations of $1.2 million for the same period in 2010. 

Financial expenses due to publicly traded warrants: Evogene had approximately 4.5 million publicly traded warrants outstanding, which were issued as part of its IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in May 2007, 99.9% of which were exercised by May 31, 2011 (the warrant expiry date). While these warrants were outstanding, any change as of the end of a reporting period in the market price of the Company’s ordinary shares results in non-cash financial income (expense) due to their revaluation on our statements of comprehensive profit or loss.

Total Comprehensive profit for the first nine months of 2011 was $1.6 million, which includes $3.7 million of non-cash financial income due to publicly traded warrants, as described above, compared to a total comprehensive loss of $4.0 million, including $2.2 million of such non-cash financial expenses, for the same period in 2010. Total comprehensive loss for the third quarter of 2011 was $2.3 million, compared to a total comprehensive loss of $3.6 million, which includes $3.1 million of such non-cash financial expenses for the same period in 2010. Also as explained above, these non-cash financial income and/or expense amounts due to publicly traded warrants will not be applicable for future quarterly results.

As of September 30, 2011, Evogene had approximately $60 million in cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities and short-term deposits, compared to approximately $36 million as of December 31, 2010.  The September 30, 2011 amount includes $16.6 million from the exercise of the previously outstanding publicly traded warrants and $12 million from an equity investment in the Company by Bayer CropScience pursuant to a wheat collaboration agreement signed in December 2010.