A North Vancouver ag biotech company’s processes for faster installation of new traits into food and non-food crops is now pledged to Dow AgroSciences.
Indanapolis-based Dow Agro on Tuesday announced a research and commercial license option agreement with Agrisoma Biosciences, owner of ETL (Engineered Trait Loci) genetic modification technology.
Dow Agro said the agreement grants the company access to Agrisoma’s proprietary ETL technology on an exclusive basis in “major food crops,” and on a non-exclusive basis in “other” crop species.
Dow Agro didn’t offer any financial details of the licensing agreement, but described it as a “strategic investment” in ETL technology.
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The investment “will accelerate the creation of new and novel products in crop plants, such as increased levels and improved forms of healthier oils or other beneficial food components,” Dan Kittle, Dow Agro’s vice-president for research and development (R+D) said in the company’s release Tuesday.
“Agrisoma has demonstrated the utility, stability and performance our ETL technology in a broad range of crops, including important food crops such as soybeans and canola,” the B.C. company’s CEO Steven Fabijanski said in Dow Agro’s release.
“Our ETL technology has proven performance, and through this new collaboration with Dow AgroSciences, we hope to be able to commercialize this technology in major global food crops.”
Patent-protected ETL is a “broadly applicable” technology that makes it easier to place new traits within a crop’s native genome, the companies said.
Agrisoma, which has collaborated with Dow Agro on seed research since 2004, already has a separate industrial crop program underway using ETL to engineer oil composition, oil content and yield, with the goal of developing “dedicated bioenergy plants” for the biofuel market.
The Dow Agro agreement will complement that research, Fabijanski said.
ETL-engineered crops are now undergoing a second year of field trials at multiple locations, the company said.
“ETL technology will be an important tool in our ‘toolbox’ to deliver differentiated solutions enabled by the expression of multiple genes or enhancements in complex biochemical pathways,” Dow Agro’s Kittle said.
