Kingston, Ontario, Canada
July 15th, 2011
Performance Plants Inc. (“PPI”), a leading global agricultural biotechnology provider with its R&D facilities in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, has entered into a commercial licensing agreement in corn and a four-year R&D collaborative licensing agreement in rice and soybean with a leading Chinese agricultural company Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., Ltd (DBN).
DBN is a leader in the country's feed and seed business with strong capability in developing and commercializing new biotechnologies. Through these agreements, DBN becomes the exclusive user for PPI’s Drought Tolerance & Yield Protection Technology® (YPT®), Heat & Drought Tolerance Technology (HDT™), Water Efficiency Technology™ (WET™) and Yield Enhancement Technology (YET™) technologies in corn in China and also has non exclusive rights for those technologies in soybean and HDT™, WET™ and YET™ in rice in the country.
In exchange for the access to PPI's trait technologies for research and product development in China, PPI will obtain upfront and milestone payments as well as royalty revenues from DBN from future seed sales and sublicensing activities.
These agreements implement PPI’s strategic aim to form global technology and product development alliances for commercialization of the company's leading technologies.
China is one of the world's largest producers of rice, corn and soybean. China has 67 million acres of corn fields, similar to that of the USA. However, China's corn yields are only approximately half of that of the USA, largely due to the less favorable environmental conditions such as drought and heat.
Under close research collaboration with PPI, DBN will develop new corn, rice and soybean varieties with improved YPT®, HDT™, WET™ and YET™ trait technologies. YPT® enables crops to better tolerate drought conditions to produce better yield. HDT™ preserves yield by enhancing plants’ tolerance to heat, drought or combined stresses. WET™ allows plants to maintain their high productivity through extended periods of limited available water. YET™ is a technology that can boost seed yield under both optimal and stress growth conditions. This collaboration makes full use of PPI’s yield enhancement and weatherproofing traits with possibility to stack these traits through advanced breeding and selection processes for development of a new generation of seeds with superior agronomic performance.
The signing ceremony was hosted by the Kingston Economic Development Corporation (KEDCO) and was held at City Hall, Kingston, Ontario on July 13, 2011 at 3PM EST.
“It is wonderful that unique companies such as Performance Plants who are undertaking specialized R&D in Kingston are being recognized on a global basis for their leading edge discoveries. We are pleased to welcome DBN to Kingston and excited to support Performance Plants in this new endeavour.” said John Paul Shearer, Director of Business Development for KEDCO.
Dr. Yafan Huang, Performance Plants, President and Chief Scientific Officer said,
"We are very excited about forming this strategic research and product commercialization partnership with DBN. Combining PPI's robust gene discovery program and the set of validated trait technologies with DBN's strong capability on product development and commercialization, we will be able to form a fast track to deliver a new generation of high performance seed products to the farmers in China in the near future".
Dr. Yuping Lu, Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., Ltd, Director of Biotechnology Center said,
“DBN is one of the largest agricultural company in China with strong R&D capability. DBN can develop PPI’s innovations into products and commercialize them in China and APAC – a true win-win cooperation.”
Performance Plants Inc. (PPI) is a global leader in agricultural and biofuel technology development. The company's patented technologies weatherproof food and non-food biofuel crops through periods of drought and heat stress resulting in a more abundant, consistent and cost-effective harvests for farmers, and feedstock suppliers. The company has licensed its breakthrough Yield Protection Technology® to some of the world's leading seed companies such as Pioneer Hi-Bred (a Dupont Company), Bayer CropScience, Syngenta, Mertec LLC (Stine Seeds), RiceTec and Scotts Miracle Gro. The privately-held company is headquartered with R&D facilities in Kingston, Ontario. For additional information, please visit: www.performanceplants.com.
About Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., Ltd.
A leading agricultural company in feed and seed product development and technology innovation in China. With over 15 years experience in agricultural industry, DBN has a proven record of bringing discovery to commercialization in China and Asia and Pacific. For additional information, please visit: www.dbn.com.cn
Topics
Species
