Evogene announces financial results for second quarter and half year 2013

Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN), a leader in plant genomics underlying crop productivity for the food, feed and biofuel industries, today announced its financial results for the second quarter and half year ended June 30, 2013.

“The second quarter of this year saw significant progress and achievements as we further broadened our unique discovery and validation capabilities supporting our four market focused operating divisions, and continued to successfully meet objectives for both our partnered and Evogene sponsored product programs.”

Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO, stated: "The second quarter of this year saw significant progress and achievements as we further broadened our unique discovery and validation capabilities supporting our four market focused operating divisions, and continued to successfully meet objectives for both our partnered and Evogene sponsored product programs."

Mr. Haviv continued, "During the first half of 2013, and in particular the second quarter, we significantly increased our activities devoted to strengthening the infrastructure and expanding product offerings in our two newest operating divisions, Evofuel and Ag-chemicals. Evofuel, whose mission is the development of second generation feedstock for biodiesel, is in the process of completing the third year of field trials for our advanced castor varieties in northeast Brazil. We remain on track in our efforts to introduce a commercially viable alternative feedstock for biodiesel based on castor seeds in Brazil and Argentina."

"With respect to Ag-chemicals, which is the focus of our newest operating division, we believe our computational biology capabilities and plant genomic knowledge provide us with a unique opportunity to address the growing need for new and innovative products that can overcome the growing resistance of weeds and other pests to available chemical solutions. During the past quarter, in preliminary discussions with several leading companies in this field, we received initial confirmation that others share our belief."

"In our two operating divisions targeted at improving seed traits, one focused on yield and abiotic stress tolerance and the other on biotic stress tolerance, we continue to successfully meet the discovery and product candidate objectives under our existing collaborations with leading seed companies and evaluate new collaborations. During the past quarter, we announced the signing of a yield and abiotic stress tolerance focused collaboration for rice with DBN, a leading Chinese biotechnology company. In the area of biotic stress, we were pleased to recently announce successful field trial results in our program with Rahan Meristem to develop banana varieties expressing tolerance to Black Sigatoka disease. In addition to the potential value of this specific achievement, these results, although initial, provide a strong validation of the applicability of our predictive computational biology and gene discovery capabilities to biotic stress conditions, in addition to yield and abiotic stress conditions."

"Looking forward, it is our belief that the increased use of high-end agriculture technologies to provide improved seeds and new ag-chemical solutions will be an absolute requirement in order to address the growing worldwide needs for food, feed and fuel. Therefore, with the constantly increasing recognition by leading agriculture companies worldwide of Evogene as a unique and attractive solution provider, we are very optimistic regarding the future for our company," concluded Mr. Haviv.

Revenues for the first six months ended June 30, 2013 were $8.9 million, compared to $8.3 million for the same period in 2012. Revenues for the second quarter of 2013 were $4.3 million, compared to $4.1 million reported for the same period in 2012. Revenues for the first half and the second quarter of 2013 consist primarily of research and development fees under the company's various collaboration agreements with seed companies.

Cost of Revenues consists of expenses incurred in support of our on-going collaborations with seed companies which provide, in addition to current revenues related to research and development fees, the potential for future milestone and royalty revenues. Cost of Revenues for the first six months ended June 30, 2013 was $4.7 million, compared to $4.5 million for the same period in 2012. Cost of Revenues during the second quarter of 2013 was $2.5 million, compared to $2.4 million reported for the same period in 2012.

Research & Development expenses for the first six months ended June 30, 2013, which do not include expenses incurred in support of on-going collaborations, were $4.7 million, compared to $3.3 million for the same period in 2012. Research and development expenses for the second quarter of 2013 were $2.5 million, compared to $1.9 million reported for the same period in 2012. The increases for 2013 compared to 2012 primarily relate to significantly increased activities devoted to strengthening the infrastructure and expanding product offerings in Evogene's two newest operating divisions, Evofuel and Ag-chemicals, including establishment of dedicated computational platforms and related headcount. These increases for 2013 also relate to broadening the company's competencies in the area of biotic discovery.

Loss from ordinary operations for the first six months of 2013 was $2.1 million, compared to loss from ordinary operations of $1.1 million in the same period in 2012. Loss from ordinary operations for the second quarter of 2013 was $1.6 million, compared to loss from ordinary operations of $1.0 million in the same period in 2012. The increase in loss from ordinary operations is mainly due to the increase in R&D expenses, as described above

Total comprehensive loss for the first six months ended June 30, 2013, was $2.4 million, compared to a total comprehensive loss of $0.7 million for the same period in 2012. Comprehensive loss for the second quarter of 2013 was $1.9 million, compared to a comprehensive loss of $1.2 million for the same period in 2012. The increase of comprehensive loss is mainly due to the increase in loss from ordinary operations, as described above, and an increase in financial expenses, mainly due to a decrease in market value of marketable securities the Company holds.

As of June 30, 2013, Evogene had $50.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and short term marketable securities, compared to $55.1 million as of December 31, 2012.