Upstream Ag Professional - February 25th 2024
Upstream Ag Professional - February 25th 2024
Essential news and analysis for agribusiness leaders
Welcome to the 30th Edition of Upstream Ag Professional!
Index for the week:
Evogene in Agriculture: Subsidiaries AgPlenus and Lavie Bio Announce Partnerships with Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science
Syngenta and Lavie Bio Announce Partnership to Discover and Develop Novel Bio-Insecticide
AgPlenus Announces Licensing & Collaboration Agreement with Bayer to Develop a New Sustainable Weed Control Solution
Dynamic Shared Ownership and the Bayer Transition: What is it and Can it work?
Trace Genomics Raises Oversubscribed $10.5 Million Series B
FBN Appoints Diego Casanello as CEO
Ag-tech Start-Up WeedOUT Raises USD8.1 Million to Fight Weed Resistance
Syngenta Partners with CropX
CNH Industrial News
CNH takes minority stake in drone imaging AI company Bem Agro, a Brazilian startup
Intelinair and CNH Industrial Expand Integration
ICYMI: Carlo Lambro, President of New Holland Commentary
Search Functionality and Audio Summary
Other Ag Articles
1. Evogene in Agriculture and their Subsidiaries Announce Partnerships with Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science - Upstream Ag Professional
Key Takeaways:
Evogene's use of its computational predictive biology (CPB) platform, segmented into Microboost AI, ChemPass AI, and GeneRator AI, illustrates the innovative approach to product discovery and development it has. Their strategy of creating independent subsidiaries and partnering with leading companies for product commercialization showcases a unique model for leveraging AI in the discovery of new crop protection products.
Syngenta Crop Protection and biological company Lavie Bio Ltd. have entered into a collaboration for the discovery and development of new biological insecticidal solutions.
AgPlenus Ltd., has entered into a licensing and collaboration agreement with Bayer AG to develop novel sustainable crop protection products. This partnership signifies a major step in leveraging artificial intelligence and computational technology to create herbicides with broad-spectrum activity targeting new modes of action, specifically the APTH1 protein identified by AgPlenus.
Syngenta and Lavie Bio Announce Partnership to Discover and Develop Novel Bio-Insecticide - Lavie Bio
AgPlenus Announces Licensing & Collaboration Agreement with Bayer to Develop a New Sustainable Weed Control Solution - PR Newswire
Evogene is a public entity, founded in 1999 as a division of Compugen and then spun off in 2002.
Today, Evogene has five subsidiaries and three artificial intelligence engines driven by what they call a “computational predictive biology” platform, or CPB Platform.
The CPB platform is used for product discovery and development, utilizing comprehensive computational biology to increase the effectiveness of finding suitable molecules while reducing the time and cost of product development.
Evogene tailored the platform to have three separate focuses:
Microboost AI - supports the discovery and development of microbe-based products.
ChemPass AI - supports products based on genetic elements
GeneRator AI - supports genomic understanding and gene identification
Evogene's approach is to establish a product development ecosystem around each tech engine, through two business structures:
Create independent subsidiaries, focusing on specific life science market segments with a license to use Evogene’s tech engines for product development, or;
Joint development with leading companies for defined products utilizing Evogene’s tech-engines. Typically, the partner leads later-stage development and product commercialization.
Of Evogene’s five subsidiaries, four are agriculture-related (with the first two being of the most interest for North American agribusiness professionals and especially of note this week with their partnership announcements, more below):
Lavie Bio: Lavie Bio is dedicated to developing next-generation ag-biological products. It uses Evogene’s MicroBoost AI tech engine for its developments.
AgPlenus: This subsidiary is focused on discovering innovative crop protection products, such as herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. AgPlenus leverages the ChemPass AI tech engine to identify small molecules and novel target proteins for the development of new pesticides.
Casterra: Casterra is developing solutions for the industrialized cultivation of castor beans, aiming to meet the global demand for castor oil supply, primarily for the biodiesel industry and more prominent in Africa.
Canonic: Focused on medical cannabis, Canonic aims to develop best-in-class products using Evogene’s GeneRator AI tech engine.
Revenues across all entities are small, and losses are still in the millions each quarter. What is notable is that they continue to gain traction with prominent agribusiness players, leading to investments, partnerships, and exclusive agreements.
For the full write-up, including an overview of the Syngenta/Lavie Bio announcement and the AgPlenus/Bayer announcement, including their business models, areas of focus, and how the Evogene subsidiary product works, check out the article above.
Related: Taranis Welcomes New Board Member Vern Hawkins - Taranis
2. Dynamic Shared Ownership and the Bayer Transition: What is it and Can it work? - Upstream Ag Professional
Key Takeaways
Bayer is cutting its dividend by 95% (to the legal minimum in Germany) in an effort to manage the debt created by the acquisition of Monsanto that has impacted the company because of the extensive litigation surrounding glyphosate.
Empowerment and Agility: Bayer's adoption of DSO aims to empower employees and decentralize decision-making, highlighting a move towards agile and responsive organizational structures in agribusiness. DSO is based on the book Humanocracy.
Cultural and Operational Adjustments: Implementing DSO presents challenges, including cultural shifts and operational disruptions, as employees adapt to new expectations and decision-making freedoms.
Strategic Gains vs. Immediate Challenges: The shift towards a more empowered workforce is intended for long-term innovation and efficiency gains at Bayer, despite potential short-term disruptions and adjustment periods.
Bayer Cuts Dividend by 95% as It Wrestles With Roundup Woes - Bloomberg
Bayer plans to cut its dividend by 95% (to the legal minimum in Germany) in an effort to manage the debt created by the acquisition of Monsanto that has impacted the company because of the extensive litigation surrounding glyphosate.
Even beyond the glyphosate challenges, Bayer is having struggles across its business units.
New CEO Bill Anderson has initiated operational changes designed to speed up decision-making, cutting layers of management and eliminating thousands of jobs. The job cuts will be implemented over the coming months and completed by the end of 2025 at the latest.
Anderson is also reviewing the company strategy, which currently includes three divisions focused on crop science, pharmaceuticals, and consumer health products. We will find out what the go-forward plan is during the company Capital Markets Day on March 5th, so I will cover that in the March 10th edition of Upstream.
Regarding the operational changes, Anderson has been emphasizing what he calls “Dynamic Shared Ownership,” or DSO, based on the book Humanocracy by Gary Hamel.