Fungal disease resistance: DuPont
In August 2008, Hexima entered into a development and commercialisation collaboration with DuPont subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred International for fungal resistance technology. Pioneer has the rights to commercialise the technology in the two leading GM crops globally, corn and soybean. Hexima has retained the rights to commercialise the technology in other crops.
Fungal disease is a major source of yield losses of major food crops in every continent and causes annual losses exceeding US$8 billion in corn and soybean in the US alone.
The collaboration draws on the respective strengths of each company and builds on the success of Hexima’s anti-fungal technology in Australian cotton field trials over three seasons, which delivered at least 70% higher plant survival rates and more than doubled the lint yields compared to the non-GM control.
The initial focus of the collaboration is corn, the most valuable GM crop worldwide. Hexima is undertaking the discovery and early development phases of the program in Australia. Pioneer has provided valuable enabling technologies and corn germplasm and has assisted Hexima scientists in developing their corn transformation skills.
Over the first 12-18 months of the program, the protein bioassay team has focused on the identification of the anti-fungal proteins required to control the major corn pathogens. Several genes have been transferred to the constructs team for the production of gene constructs and expression analysis.
At the same time, the glasshouse and corn transformation teams have been developing their skills in producing transgenic corn plants. Early in 2010, Hexima reached a major milestone, producing its first transgenic corn plants containing genes expressing anti-fungal proteins.
Hexima has commissioned a new corn transformation facility located at La Trobe University’s R&D Park. The facility has extensive additional glasshouse space, growth rooms and laboratories for tissue culture which will make the anticipated exponential growth of the program possible. Hexima expects to produce and test over 10,000 transgenic plants in calendar year 2010.
View a diagram of an indicative development stage. |
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Cotton transformation: Dow AgroSciences
Cotton is one of the most difficult crops to transform, and Hexima’s capability has been recognised by major agribusiness Dow AgroSciences, who contracted Hexima to perform cotton transformation experiments on their behalf, in August 2007. The contract enables Dow to provide better solutions to cotton growers, and provides a current revenue stream. The project is progressing well, on time and budget, and is due to finish in mid 2010.
MGEV: Licence deals with the two market leaders, Pioneer and Monsanto
Hexima’s Multi-Gene Expression Vehicle is a protein stacking and expression tool that can be used in a range of crops.
The Company has entered into two non-exclusive licences since the start of the financial year with the world’s two largest ag-biotechnology companies, Pioneer and Monsanto.
In August 2009, Hexima entered into a non-exclusive research licence agreement with Pioneer for the use of the MGEV technology in corn and soybean. As part of this agreement, which is separate from the fungal disease collaboration, Pioneer is evaluating the utility of the MGEV in expressing other proprietary genes. In February 2010, Hexima entered into a further non-exclusive research and commercialisation cross-licence agreement with Monsanto. As part of this agreement, Monsanto has obtained a research licence and commercial option to the MGEV to assess its effectiveness in facilitating the expression and processing of multiple genes of interest in corn, soybean and other plant species.
Hexima plans to commercialise the MGEV with industry partners through a broad non-exclusive licensing strategy and licences with market leaders, Pioneer and Monsanto, will play an important role not only in the evaluation of the technology, but in ensuring the visibility of the technology.
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