Calyxt licenses new tech for greater efficiency in gene edited plants

In Minnesota, Calyxt, Inc., a plant-based technology company, licensed a new method to help increase plant gene editing efficiency from the University of Minnesota. The method has the potential to reduce the time needed to edit plants from approximately one year to several months.

This new technology could help Calyxt bring consumer-desired products, like better tasting plant proteins, to the market faster.

The company expects to launch at least six product candidates from now through 2024, including a hemp product candidate in 2020, an alfalfa product in 2021 through its collaboration with S&W Seed Company (NASDAQ: SANW), a high fiber wheat product candidate as early as 2022, and four additional product candidates either via the company’s integrated business model or in collaboration with third parties.

This breakthrough, co-invented by Dan Voytas, Ph.D., the co-founder of Calyxt and the University of Minnesota Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, is an example of  the opportunistic synergies that Calyxt has with the University of Minnesota to put into commercial practice some of the technical discoveries coming out of the University’s research programs.