May 24th, 2009
Rehovot, Israel – May 24th, 2009 – Evogene (TASE:EVGN) announces that during the past six months, it has significantly strengthened its scientific and management teams by the appointment of additional Program Manager, Business Development Manager, Director of IP, Director of Operation, Senior Computational Genomics Scientist, Plant Growth Unit Manager and Seed-Bank Manager, next to additional manpower in the different units of the company's technology platform.
During the past year, Evogene continued with its technical, commercial and financial progress, and entered into multi-year collaborations with leading international seed companies: In August 2008, Evogene signed a 5 year collaboration agreement with Monsanto Company for yield and drought improvement in key commercial crops, and in April 2009, Evogene signed a three year collaboration agreement with Bayer CropScience for yield improvement in rice. In order to support its R&D programs and these new and previous collaboration agreements, the company decided to strengthen its professional team.
Ofer Haviv, Evogene's president and CEO said: "During the past year, we experienced a tremendous growth, both in our human resources and in our research and administrative facilities. Following a growth of more than 50% in our human resources, we are today proud to employ 75 employees from various disciplines - bioinformaticians, biologists, breeders, agronomists and others. Our team is a great contributor to our progress and achievements, and we are certain that our expanded team will allow us to further meet the objectives in our two main fields of activity –improved plant traits and improved feedstock for biofuels."
The senior employees who joined Evogene's team are:
Dr. Dror Shalitin – Program Manager
Prior to joining Evogene, Dr. Shalitin worked for 2 years as a senior scientist at the ‘Institute for Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research’, West Hollywood, CA, USA (2006-2007). During the years 2000-2005, Dr. Shalitin worked first as a post-doctorate fellow and then as a Research-Associate at the University of California Los-Angeles. His scientific findings were published in standing journals such as Nature, Plant Cell and PNAS.
Dr. Shalitin holds a Ph.D. (2001) and a M.Sc. (1994) from the Department of Field Crops and Genetics, and the Department of Plant Pathology (respectively), Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Mr. Eran Kosover – Business Development Manager
Prior to joining Evogene, Mr. Kosover was in charge of Sales & Marketing in Atera Networks, an Israeli Hi-tech IT Security company (2005-2008). Prior to that, Mr. Kosover worked as a Project Manager in various Strategic Consulting projects for Teva Pharmaceuticals divisions, mainly Teva EU (2002-2005).
Mr. Kosover holds an M.A. in Economics from the Tel Aviv University Berglas School of Economics (2006); and a B.A. in Economics and Management from the Tel Aviv University (2002).
Mr. Gil Kalmanovich – Director of IP
Prior to joining Evogene, Mr. Kalmanovich worked as the IP manager at COMVERSE Ltd. Prior to that, Mr. Kalmanovich worked as the IP Manager at Rosettagenomics (2005-2007).
Mr. Kalmanovich is a licensed Israeli Patent Attorney since 2004.
Mr. Kalmanovich holds a M.Sc. in Bioinformatics from Bar-Ilan University (Cum Laude) and a M.BA. from the Interdisciplinary Institute in Rishon Le-Zion.
Mr. Assaf Elias – Director of Operation
Prior to joining Evogene, Mr. Elias worked in two startups companies as COO (2005-2008). Prior to that, Mr. Elias worked at Compugen as Operation and Purchasing Manager (2000-2005).
Mr. Elias holds a M.BA. from the College of Management and a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Bar-Ilan University.
Ms. Maital Ashkenazi - Senior Computational Genomics Scientist
Prior to joining Evogene, Ms. Ashkenazi worked as a senior software engineer at UCmore (2000-2001), as a project leader at Comverse (1999-2000) and as a consultant for SPL WorldGroup (1997-1998). In addition to her role in Evogene, Ms. Ashkenazi is a core developer for the open source organization Cytoscape, and mentors students through their coding projects in the Google Summer of Code program.
Ms. Ashkenazi holds a M.Sc. (Cum Laude) in Plant Science, Genomics and Bioinformatics (2008) and a B.Sc. (Cum Laude) in Plant Science (2005) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ms. Haya Rak-Yahalom – Model Plant Growth Unit Manager
Prior to joining Evogene, Ms. Rak-Yahalom worked at "Hen" nurseries as an Agronomist and a production manager (1994-2009). In addition she worked in developing data base for "Yanai" nurseries (2003). She also performed various consulting jobs and worked as a landscape architect (2002-2009).
Ms. Rak –Yahalom holds a B.Sc. Agr. (1987) from the Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ms. Michal Stein – Seed Bank Manager
Prior to joining Evogene, Ms. Michal Stein worked as a Regulatory Document Specialist at CTI Clinical Trial & Consulting Services Inc., USA (2006-2008). In addition, she managed the Germination Laboratory at "Hazera Genetics", Israel.
Ms. Stein holds a M.Sc. (1993) and a B.Sc. (1991) from the Plant Protection Department of the Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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