St. Louis, Missouri, USA
March 24, 2021
Plastomics, a plant biotechnology company making more effective and sustainable crops by delivering valuable traits to the chloroplast, has entered into an agreement with Amfora, Inc., which is developing crops with enhanced nutritional content.
Plastomics is a development stage agricultural company utilizing novel plant transformation technology that takes advantage of the crop’s solar engine—the chloroplast—to introduce traits and overcome challenges with traditional biotech trait introduction. Plastomics’ trait delivery technology increases the pace, magnitude, and sustainability of agricultural innovation while also reducing the cost to bring new products to market.
Amfora is building a platform of technologies that enhances the nutritional density of food and feed crops. The company is applying these technologies to develop a pipeline of products aimed at meeting the growing global demand for foods that are high in protein while enhancing sustainability. Amfora is initially focused on developing soy as a scalable, low-cost high-density protein source for aquaculture feed, for plant-based meat and for other animal protein replacements.
Under the terms of the agreement, Plastomics will use its proprietary transformation technologies to introduce Amfora gene-editing constructs into high performance soybean germplasm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“Plastomics provides Amfora with the benefits of commercial savvy and advanced capability for soybean transformation with timelines that will accelerate our R&D objectives,” said Michael Lassner, Ph.D., Amfora's Chief Science Officer.
Jeffrey Staub, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer of Plastomics noted that Plastomics will use its state-of-the-art transformation capabilities to help Amfora speed the development of Amfora’s high-protein soybean products.
“These are capabilities we utilize every day as a part of the advancement of our novel chloroplast transformation platform,” he said. “Our collaborations with biotech companies like Amfora allows us to help small and mid-size companies accelerate their pipelines while we grow our own technology platform.
About Plastomics
Plastomics is a plant biotechnology company making more effective and sustainable crops by delivering valuable traits to the chloroplast – the solar engine of the plant. Plastomics is committed to using its technology to produce the next generation of agricultural crops to feed a growing world. Plastomics is located in St. Louis, Missouri in the center of the 39 North Innovation District in the middle of America’s Heartland. This location provides access to the unique benefits of the technical expertise and specialized capabilities (e.g. greenhouse, growth chamber, tissue culture and advanced microscopy) of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Plastomics is also a member of the Danforth Center/Wells Fargo Foundation Innovation Incubator (IN2). For more information, please visit www.plastomics.com
About Amfora
Amfora is a biotechnology company that is harnessing biology to sustainably nourish the world’s population and enhancing wellness. Amfora's mission is to meet the growing global demand for foods that are high in protein by enhancing the nutritional density of food and feed crops, while reducing the cost of food and the environmental toll on the planet. More information can be found at www.amforainc.com.
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