以色列植物基因组学公司 Evogene Ltd. 和总部位于美国的生物害虫防治和植物健康产品供应商 Marrone Bio Innovations Inc. 宣布签署一项多年合作协议，旨在共同发现新型生物模式昆虫防治行动，随后各公司开发和商业化新的昆虫防治产品。
The partnership will leverage the expertise and distinct assets and capabilities of each company in its respective field, namely MBI’s expertise in microbial-based solutions for pest control and plant health, and Evogene’s computational gene discovery capabilities. Integrating these discovery capabilities, the companies will utilize the collaboration’s joint assets to separately develop and commercialize products.
具体而言，Evogene 将开发生物技术抗虫种子，而 MBI 将开发生物杀虫剂。双方同意分享通过合作开发的所有昆虫控制产品的收入。
合作的目标昆虫将是 Lygus Hesperus，这是一种吸吮昆虫，也被称为西方锈蚀植物害虫；和 甜菜夜蛾，一种通常被称为甜菜粘虫的咀嚼昆虫，目前每一种都对多种主要作物造成重大损害。
The worldwide damage to crop production due to insects, currently estimated at 20% of global yield, is expected to become an even greater problem in coming years. Among the trends underlying this concern is the fact that the most prominent bio-insecticides and all biotechnology insect resistant seeds solutions available today consist of ‘modes-of-action’ derived from a single microbial species (苏云金芽孢杆菌, or Bt). These Bt-based solutions are not able to effectively control all types of insects damaging agriculture crops. And for those insects where Bt has been effective, the development of resistance is increasing. In light of this need, the parties will leverage their combined discovery capabilities to identify new ‘modes-of-action’ for insect control, focusing on other microbial species.
Ofer Haviv, president and CEO of Evogene said, “This very unique collaboration being announced today brings together industry leading and synergistic discovery capabilities to address a major unmet need in agriculture biotechnology. We expect our joint efforts will result in significant product opportunities for both Evogene and MBI, and we are very pleased to join forces with a company that is an industry leader in its areas of interest. This collaboration demonstrates how Evogene’s established capabilities can be leveraged into new fields and new product types, such as ag-biologicals, while in parallel, broadening the product portfolio in our existing fields by adding two new product programs to our recently launched activity in insect resistance seed traits.”
Pam Marrone, CEO of MBI commented, “The industry has long recognized the need for novel modes of action for insect control because of growing insect resistance to existing classes of chemistry. MBI’s focus on this need has resulted in two novel mode of action insecticides based on microbial technology: Grandevo, based on 暗色杆菌，以及我们的最新产品 Venerate，基于一种新颖的热灭活 伯克霍尔德氏菌属 spp. strain A396). Both products control a broad spectrum of chewing and sucking insects and mites, without harm to beneficials and pollinators. This exciting collaboration with Evogene will enable us to leverage our discovery and development strategy to explore an even wider range of microbes with novel insecticidal genes.”
这些公司最近收到了两国工业研究与发展基金会 (BIRD) 的通知，该基金会支持和鼓励以色列和美国公司在各个技术领域的合作，该合作由 BIRD 评估并已被选中提供部分资金。