Cibus, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBUS), a leading agricultural technology
company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies,
today announced that the Company has successfully regenerated
plants from single cells in a wheat cultivar. This is a major
breakthrough for Cibus as well as for the industry.
“In this tour de force, I am proud of our team’s persistence,
the result of which is the opening of a scalable gene editing
process in wheat, which is a major global crop and an important
food staple,” said Greg Gocal, Executive Vice President and Chief
Scientific Officer of Cibus.
“I am so impressed with our entire team, which was able to
achieve this important milestone a year ahead of schedule, opening
up the potential to accelerate trait development in one of the
world’s most cultivated crops,” added Noel Sauer, Senior Vice
President, Research and Development. “Further, by working with seed
company customers, this achievement will enable prototyping
productivity and quality traits to address this crop’s key
challenges potentially providing farmers with new tools to manage
their farm and improve their profitability.”
Wheat is one of the world’s most cultivated crops, and one of
the major crops grown in North and South America. It is a staple in
many diets and is responsible for a fifth of people’s caloric
intake, making it one of the world’s most important crops. Wheat
flour is consumed in breads, pasta, cookies, crackers, confections,
among other things.
Initially sequenced a mere five years ago, wheat genomes are
some of the largest of all crops, having more than 16 billion
letters (compared to rice with about one billion letters that was
sequenced in 2002 and five times larger than the human genome).
They are also very complex with durum wheat comprising the fusion
of two genomes and bread wheat from the fusion of three.
Given this breakthrough, Cibus intends to develop a family of
traits to address the most significant challenges faced by farmers
globally for wheat, focusing initially on disease resistance and
nitrogen use efficiency. Nitrogen use efficiency is a need in many
crops, but particularly for wheat with its enormous, cultivated
acreage. A nitrogen use efficiency trait would have the potential
to materially reduce the carbon footprint of the crop while
offering better yield with similar fertilization. Fungal diseases
cause a significant economic impact in wheat production with
cereals representing the largest fungicide market. Development of
disease resistance traits in wheat offer the promise of protecting
yield potential while reducing fungicide use. We are encouraged
that we will be able to address the major diseases in wheat.
Finally, this platform enables the development of improved wheat
quality traits, potentially reducing or eliminating allergens such
as gluten and even further improvement of the Company’s high fiber
wheat.
“This breakthrough represents a significant milestone for our
business. Our long-term goal is to develop a scalable high-speed
breeding production system that can develop and produce traits for
any seed company servicing any of the five major crops (canola,
rice, wheat, soybean, and corn),” said Rory Riggs, Co-Founder,
Chairman, and CEO of Cibus.
About the Cibus
RTDS®-based High
Throughput Breeding SystemA key element of Cibus’
technology breakthrough is its high Throughput Breeding Process
(referred to as the Trait Machine™ System). The Trait Machine
process is a crop specific application of Cibus’ patented Rapid
Trait Development System™ (RTDS). The proprietary
technologies in RTDS integrate crop specific cell
biology platforms with a series of gene editing technologies to
enable a system of end-to-end crop specific precision breeding. It
is the core technology platform for Cibus’ Trait Machine: the first
standardized end-to-end semi-automated crop specific gene editing
system that directly edits a seed company’s elite germplasm. Each
Trait Machine process requires a crop specific cell biology
platform that enables Cibus to edit a single cell from a customers’
elite germplasm and grow that edited cell into a plant with the
Cibus edits. Cibus has Trait Machine platforms developed for canola
and rice and has already begun transferring back to customers their
elite germplasm with Cibus edits.
The traits from Cibus’ RTDS-based High
Throughput Breeding System are indistinguishable from traits
developed using conventional breeding or from nature. Under the
European Commission current proposals, it is expected that products
from Cibus’ RTDS gene editing platform such as its
pod shatter resistance trait and Sclerotinia resistance traits for
Winter Oilseed Rape would be considered ‘Conventional-like'.
Cibus believes that RTDS and the Trait Machine
process represent the technological breakthrough in plant breeding
that is the ultimate promise of plant gene editing: High Throughput
Gene Editing Systems operating as an extension of seed company
breeding programs.
About CibusCibus is a leader in gene edited
productivity traits that address critical productivity and
sustainability challenges for farmers such as diseases and pests
which the United Nations estimates cost the global economy
approximately $300 billion annually. Cibus is not a seed company.
It is a technology company that uses gene editing to develop and
license traits to seed companies in exchange for royalties on seed
sales. Cibus’ focus is productivity traits for the major global
crops such as canola, rice, soybean, and wheat. Cibus is the
technology leader in high throughput gene editing technology that
enables Cibus to develop and commercialize plant traits at a
fraction of the time and cost of conventional breeding. Using its
Trait Machine process, Cibus has developed a pipeline of five
productivity traits including important traits for pod shatter
reduction, Sclerotinia resistance and weed management. Its initial
traits for pod shatter reduction and weed management are developed
in collaborations with leading seed companies. Its other pipeline
traits including Sclerotinia resistance are in advanced greenhouse
and field trial stages.
Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release
contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of
applicable securities laws, including The Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than
statements of present or historical fact included herein, including
statements regarding Cibus’ operational and financial performance,
Cibus’ strategy, future operations, prospects and plans, including
the anticipated regulatory environment are forward-looking
statements. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words
such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “intend”, “expect,” “plan,”
“scheduled,” “could,” “would” and “will,” or the negative of these
and similar expressions.
These forward-looking statements are based on
the current expectations and assumptions of Cibus’ management about
future events, which are based on currently available information.
These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and
uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and beyond
the control of Cibus. Cibus’ actual results, level of activity,
performance, or achievements could be materially different than
those expressed, implied, or anticipated by forward-looking
statements due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited
to: changes in expected or existing competition; challenges to
Cibus’ intellectual property protection and unexpected costs
associated with defending intellectual property rights; increased
or unanticipated time and resources required for Cibus’ platform or
trait product development efforts; Cibus’ reliance on third parties
in connection with its development activities; challenges
associated with Cibus’ ability to effectively license its
productivity traits and sustainable ingredient products; the risk
that farmers do not recognize the value in germplasm containing
Cibus’ traits or that farmers and processors fail to work
effectively with crops containing Cibus’ traits; challenges that
arise in respect of Cibus’ production of high-quality plants and
seeds cost effectively on a large scale; Cibus’ need for additional
funding to finance its activities and challenges in obtaining
additional capital on acceptable terms, or at all; Cibus’
dependence on distributions from Cibus Global, LLC to pay taxes and
cover its corporate and overhead expenses; regulatory developments
that disfavor or impose significant burdens on gene-editing
processes or products; Cibus’ ability to achieve commercial
success; commodity prices and other market risks facing the
agricultural sector; technological developments that could render
Cibus’ technologies obsolete; changes in macroeconomic and market
conditions, including inflation, supply chain constraints, and
rising interest rates; dislocations in the capital markets and
challenges in accessing liquidity and the impact of such liquidity
challenges on Cibus’ ability to execute on its business plan; the
Company's assessment of the period of time through which its
financial resources will be adequate to support operations; and
other important factors discussed in “Risk Factors of Cibus, Inc.”
filed as Exhibit 99.3 with Cibus’ Current Report on Form 8-K, which
was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”)
on June 1, 2023, as updated by the supplemental risk factors
included in the Company's Current Reports on Form 8-K filed on
October 18, 2023 and December 12, 2023, each as may be updated by
any additional “Risk Factors” identified in Cibus’ subsequent
reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K filed with the SEC. Should one or
more of these risks or uncertainties occur, or should underlying
assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and plans could differ
materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements.
Cibus’ assessment of the period of time through which its financial
resources will be adequate to support its operations is a
forward-looking statement and involves such risks and
uncertainties. Accordingly, the Company could use its available
capital resources sooner than it currently expects.
In addition, the forward-looking statements
included in this press release represent Cibus’ views as of the
date hereof. Cibus specifically disclaims any obligation to update
such forward-looking statements in the future, except as required
under applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not
be relied upon as representing Cibus’ views as of any date
subsequent to the date hereof.
Cibus Contacts:
Investor RelationsKaren
Troeberktroeber@cibus.com858-450-2636
Jeff Sonnek – ICRjeff.sonnek@icrinc.com
Media Relations Colin
Sanfordcolin@bioscribe.com203-918-4347
Cibus (NASDAQ:CBUS)
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