August 31st, 2009
REHOVOT, ISRAEL (August 31, 2009) – Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) announced today that Mr. Assaf Kacen, has been named as the Company's VP of Technology Platform, effective August 31, 2009.
Prior to joining Evogene, Assaf Kacen held a position of Product manager at Nokia Siemens Networks (2008-2009). He has substantial R&D management experience leading Lateral Software Groups with multiple teams of engineers (2004-2008), implementing advanced development procedures and management methods with proven results. Assaf served in the Israeli Air Force, where he held a variety of command and management positions. Assaf holds an MBA from Interdisciplinary Center, with a specialization in Finance and a B.Sc in Communication Systems Engineering from Ben-Gurion University.
"We are pleased to have Assaf Kacen join our team at Evogene. Assaf's experience in R&D platform management coupled with his operational excellence makes him a strong leader for our technology platform," said Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO. "For the past three years, Dr. Tamara Byk has led the establishment of the Company's powerful technology platform. During this period, we significantly strengthened the platform infrastructure: the professional technology platform team grew from 20 people to more than 50; we doubled the number of platform departments; tremendously increased the platform's gene validation capacity and greatly improved processes related to our gene validation. The exceptional capabilities and potential of the technology platform team have been demonstrated through our accelerating R&D programs and our technological and commercial achievements."
Assaf Kacen stated, “I am very excited to join Evogene and take part in the Company's growth. The fundamental role of Evogene's technology platform makes this new position a great challenge for me. I am confident that working together with the platform's talented team will allow us to support the R&D programs and provide the essentials for the Company to meet its goals."
Tamara Byk, stated, "I am proud to have been a part of the achievement and progress of Evogene in the recent years. It was a great challenge for me to lead Evogene's technology platform, which includes the Bioinformatics, Molecular Biology, Tissue Culture & Plant Transformation units as well as the Plant Growth units, in a period of accelerated growth and substantial expansion of the Company's R&D programs and collaborative activities. I look forward to continuing to be involved in the Company's consulting capacity.”
About Evogene
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.
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