San Diego, California, USA
January 25, 2024
- The Environment Committee of the European Parliament votes in favour of the European Commission proposal to introduce a new regulation on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs) and their food and feed.
- The Committee’s report indicates that NGTs have the ability to enhance agriculture by making crops more resilient and sustainable whilst providing unprecedented opportunities for European agriculture and food production.
- The proposed regulation identifies a ‘Conventional-like’ category of NGT products that would be regulated as conventional varieties, bringing EU policy closer to that of trading partners in UK, North and South America, India, Australia, and Japan
- Following the positive vote, the legislation will now move to a plenary session of the European Parliament on 5th to 8th of February for a vote on adoption.
Cibus, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBUS), a leading agricultural technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies, welcomes the vote of the Environment Committee of the European Parliament on 24th January in favour of new legislation for New Genomic Techniques (NGTs).
The legislation is part of a package of EU proposals to ensure resilient and sustainable use of the EU's natural resources. It describes a category of NGTs, classed as targeted mutagenesis and cisgenesis, producing modifications that could be obtained in nature or by conventional breeding. These are determined to be ‘Conventional-like’ and, once verified, would be regulated in the same way as conventional varieties.
Before the vote, an open letter from 35 Nobel Laureates and over 1400 scientists urged MEPs to support the legislation in order to foster innovation, enhance food security and boost climate resilience.
After the vote, MEP and rapporteur Jessica Polfjärd said, “This proposal is critical for strengthening Europe's food safety in a sustainable manner. We finally have a chance to implement rules that embrace innovation and I look forward to concluding negotiations in the Parliament and with the Council as soon as possible.”
Tony Moran, Senior Vice President of International Development and Government Affairs at Cibus, commented, “The committee vote is an important step in the EU process for legislation that improves alignment with EU trading partners. Timely adoption would also be a significant boost for innovators particularly in academia and small and mid-sized enterprises who are actively developing NGT products that could contribute to a sustainable EU agri-food system.”
About the Cibus RTDS®-based High Throughput Breeding System
A key element of Cibus’ technology breakthrough is its High Throughput Breeding Process (referred to as the Trait Machine™ System). The Trait Machine process is a crop specific application of Cibus’ patented Rapid Trait Development System™ (RTDS®). The proprietary technologies in RTDS integrate crop specific cell biology platforms with a series of gene editing technologies to enable a system of end-to-end crop specific precision breeding. It is the core technology platform for Cibus’ Trait Machine: the first standardized end-to-end semi-automated crop specific gene editing system that directly edits a seed company’s elite germplasm. Each Trait Machine process requires a crop specific cell biology platform that enables Cibus to edit a single cell from a customers’ elite germplasm and grow that edited cell into a plant with the Cibus edits. Cibus has Trait Machine platforms developed for canola and rice and has already begun transferring their elite germplasm with Cibus edits back to customers.
The traits from Cibus’ RTDS-based High Throughput Breeding System are indistinguishable from traits developed using conventional breeding or from nature. RTDS does not use any foreign DNA or transgenes. Under the European Commission current proposals, it is expected that products from Cibus’ RTDS gene editing platform such as its pod shatter reduction trait and Sclerotinia resistance traits for Canola and Winter Oilseed Rape would be considered ‘Conventional-like'.
Cibus believes that RTDS and the Trait Machine process represent the technological breakthrough in plant breeding that is the ultimate promise of plant gene editing: “High Throughput Gene Editing Systems operating as an extension of seed company breeding programs.”
Topics
Species
