Evogene reports Q2 revenue slip; says herbicide, insect control milestones are indicative of progress on innovative tech
In Israel, Evogene reported Q2 2015 revenues from research and development payments for the six months ended June 30, 2015 were $5.3 million, compared to $7.5 million for the same period in 2014. Revenues from research and development payments for Q2 2015 were $2.6 million, compared to $3.8 million for the same period in 2014. The decline was primarily related to the previously announced amendment to the Company’s Bayer collaboration work plan.
Operating loss for Q2 2015 was $4.6M , compared to an operating loss of $3.7M (including a non-cash expense of approximately $0.9 million for amortization of share-based compensation) for Q2 2014. This increase is mainly attributable to the increase in self-funded research and development expenses, the increase in non-cash share-based compensation expenses and the decrease in revenues from research and development payments as described above.
As of June 30, 2015, Evogene had $110 million in cash, short term bank deposits and marketable securities, representing a net cash usage of $6.3 million for the six months ended June 30, 2015.
Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO, stated: “These past few weeks have been extremely rewarding from the standpoint of Evogene’s on-going corporate growth and development. As we indicated at the time of our US IPO in late 2013, Evogene intended to allocate a large portion of the IPO proceeds towards new opportunities with substantial growth potential and a real need for innovation to drive the next generation of product development. This strategic undertaking, and the investment we made over the past year and a half in doing so, was well demonstrated by two milestone achievements that we recently disclosed.”
“First, in our herbicide program, last month we announced the successful discovery and validation in plants of the first set of potential targets. These novel targets are a significant achievement for Evogene’s herbicide program, particularly since they are predicted to represent potential new ‘mode of action’, or manner, to kill weeds, and thus may provide the basis to the development of future weed-killing products. Second, we recently disclosed the successful completion of our first computational round of microbial genes in our insect control program, which was only initiated mid last year. This is a remarkable achievement considering that in a relatively short period of time we were able to leverage our knowhow and technology to tackle a new and commercially attractive market segment with significant barriers to innovation. This first set of promising genes provides us with strong confidence in the approach we are pursuing for the discovery of microbial genes, and more importantly in their likelihood to eventually yield a commercial product.”
Category: Fuels
