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Cibus, Inc.
11/13/2025
Please stand by. We're about to begin. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the CBIS third quarter 2025 results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. And please note, today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Carlo Bruce, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon. I would like to thank you for taking time to join us for CBIS third quarter 2025 financial results and business update conference call and webcast. Presenting with me today is Peter Beethem, co-founder, interim chief executive officer, president and COO, and Greg Gochel, co-founder and our chief scientific officer. Before we begin the call, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made on the call and webcast including those regarding future financial results and future operational goals and industry prospects are forward-looking and may be subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the call. Please refer to CBUS SAC filings for a list of associated risks. This conference call is being webcast. The webcast link along with our press release and corporate presentation, are available on the investor relations section of cbus.com to assist you in your analysis of our business. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Peter.
Thanks, Carlo. And good afternoon, everyone. This past quarter has further focused our commercialization and production activities. I clearly see our company as a coiled spring ready to deliver gene editor traits for years to come. Today, I am excited to share the significant commercialization momentum we've generated since implementing our streamlined strategic focus. The progress we've made in just the past few months validates our decision to focus on our highest value near-term revenue opportunities. As we've discussed previously, We are primarily focused on our weed management traits, bringing herbicide-tolerant crops to new markets and providing great options for farmers, while we also achieve early revenue for our biofragrance business. The progress that our talented team has been able to make within our focused strategic framework is remarkable, and I believe the results speak for themselves. What you'll hear today demonstrates our drive toward our commercial goals. When we announced our streamlined focus in July this year, we committed to you that this would help solidify our path to our near-term revenue opportunities. Today, I'm pleased to report that we're delivering on that commitment. But before diving into our results, I want to take a moment to emphasize some recent exciting news about our board. We strengthened our board with two appointments this quarter. In September, we welcomed Kimberly Box as a new board member. Kim brings exactly the kind of leadership we need as we move into this commercialization phase. She has deep experience in technology operations, strategic transformation, and scaling innovation into global markets. Experience gained while employed at Hewlett-Packard in executive roles over 30 years. And just last week, we appointed Craig Wishner. Craig's deep expertise as a recognised leader in regenerative and sustainable agriculture, including farmland investment management as the founder and managing partner of Farmland LP, brings valuable perspective as we advance toward commercialisation. Both directors will play key roles in supporting our commercialization efforts and long-term value creation. Now, let me start with the headline accomplishments for the quarter and year to date. We have now signed seven rice customer agreements in the USA and Latin America, now representing approximately 5 to 7 million addressable acres for our rice herbicide tolerant traits, HT1 and HT3. and, if fully developed, represent an opportunity to capture over $200 million in potential annual royalties. The expansion of our customer base, including additional customers in Latin America, and our recent positioning for entry into the massive Asian markets via India, showcase the commercial opportunities driven by our technology and the value proposition we can deliver to seed companies worldwide. Now let me move to our priority pipeline traits and programs. I'll begin with an update on our rice herbicide tolerant traits, HT1 and HT3. These two traits, as I mentioned, continue to represent over $200 million in potential annual royalty revenues across our initial target geographies. These traits are progressing on schedule toward targeted initial commercial launch in Latin America beginning in 2027, followed by expansion to the United States in 2028, and then Asia closer to 2030. Every quarter, we are moving closer to that pivotal revenue expansion inflection point. Our year-to-date commercialization progress in rice has been exceptional. This is especially true within Latin America, where we now have five rice customer agreements signed. Latin American markets have historically lacked access to advanced weed management solutions in rice, representing a transformative opportunity to SEBAS to deliver significant value to farmers while building our commercial foundation ahead of our US and Asia targeted launches. Recent examples include our agreement signed in August expanding our Latin American customer base through a partnership with Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, or CIAT, which works with the Latin American Fund for Irrigated Rice, or FLAR, and participates in the Hybrid Rice Consortium for Latin America, HIAL. Cutting through this web of acronyms, I want to emphasize that through this important collaboration, we have the opportunity to make our HT traits available to rice farmers across Latin America. CLAR will be a great partner and has a great trait record that includes launching rice varieties in 17 countries. Further, we signed a collaboration agreement in August with Semiano, then more recently with Semias de Hula. Of these are important Colombian rice seed companies, marking continued momentum in this strategically important geography. Then, just last month in October, we began collaborating with strategic growth advisory firm Agvaya to develop a comprehensive strategy for establishing SEVIS access to seed companies in India. This is tremendously exciting because India is the world's second largest rice producer and the world's largest exporter with approximately 120 million acres under cultivation. This collaboration will focus on enabling joint development and commercialization relationships for advanced herbicide and sustainability traits, creating opportunities for Indian rice seed companies and public agencies to integrate our cutting-edge gene editing solutions. So when you step back and look at what we've accomplished just in 2025, the commercial traction is undeniable. We've expanded our rice program to a global platform spanning three continents and targeting the world's most important rice-growing regions. We've built relationships with both large multinational seed companies and regional leaders, and we're on track to initiate our first field validation trials in Latin America by year-end, with delivery of initial SEBAS HT traits to our Latin American customers anticipated in Q4 2025. What's enabling our customer momentum is our standardized rapid trade development system, or RTDS, that allows us to edit customers' elite germplasm and return it with specific traits in approximately 12 to 15 months. RTDS represents a fundamental breakthrough in agricultural innovation. offering the industry a dependable, time-bound model for trait development using gene editing that seed companies have never had access to before. Now, RTDS is becoming recognised as an essential extension of seed company breeding programs and that recognition is translating into expanding commercial partnerships. I'll shift now to an update on our partner-funded and supported sustainable ingredients program. I'm pleased to share that we achieved critical milestones this quarter with the successful completion of pre-commercial pilot runs for two BioFragrance products. Validating our technology is ready to expand to full commercial scale. This positioned us to receive initial payments, offsetting related R&D expenses in Q4 2025, representing our first proceeds from this program. This is a monumental milestone for our entire team who have been working tirelessly. And this is yet another element supporting our conviction that our business represents a coiled spring showing great promise. From there, we're positioned for targeted expansion throughout 2026 as we advance our rice traits toward full commercialization during the subsequent years in 2027, 2028 and beyond. Our biofragrance program demonstrates the versatility of our capabilities in creating value beyond crop productivity traits. We're generating strong interest in the consumer packaged goods industry for bio-based fragrance products that can replace expensive natural extraction processes or less preferred synthetic alternatives. We believe the long-term opportunity in this area is immense. Now let me move to regulatory. which we believe is a key catalyst for acceleration of the global growth of gene-edited products and continues to improve. The EU regulatory process for new genomic techniques remains active and on a path to completion. Key legislative language has now been agreed upon, with final text being refined across remaining amendment categories and anticipated to resolve within the next few months. Beyond Europe, our positive determination in Ecuador, ongoing approvals across North and South America, and progressing regulatory clarity in India and parts of Asia are creating a foundation for global market access. The California Rice Commission's approval of our field research proposal marked the first time that gene-edited rice has been authorised for planting in California. Another important validation of how our technology is synergizing with the broader regulatory environment. Returning briefly to our operational progress, we've made significant progress on our commitment to disciplined capital allocation. We've successfully completed the consolidation of our Oberlin, California facility into our San Diego location during Q3. These and other actions are driving us toward our target of approximately $30 million in annual net cash usage for 2026. This capital discipline extends our runway while ensuring we're resourced to capture the revenue opportunities ahead of us. We continue to allocate resources to our highest value programs while maintaining the development momentum required to hit our commercialization targets. And with that, I will now pass the call over to Greg to discuss our opportunity pipeline traits and programs. Greg?
Thank you, Peter. I'll keep my remarks focused on the key technical milestones we achieved this quarter that support both our priority programs and our broader opportunity pipeline. On the RACE platform, I'd emphasize that the enhanced editing efficiency we've achieved is directly enabling the customer expansion Peter described. We're not only signing agreements, we're actually delivering edited elite germplasm back to customers on predictable timelines. That technical execution is what's driving the partner interest we're seeing, and it's validating our industrialized breeding approach. Using our RTES, we are changing the way plant breeders think about the future of trait development. The unprecedented speed of our technologies to edit elite genetics will only accelerate with our continued improvement and strategic use of AIML technologies. Turning briefly to our opportunity pipeline, I want to highlight two significant technical validations this quarter. First, In our North American field trials, our HT2 herbicide tolerance trait validates the path for developing not only for that chemistry, but for any chemistry in this family. For sclerotinia resistance in canola, bioassays for plants bearing two of our modes of action demonstrate enhanced resistance. It's important to remember that both HT2 and sclerotinia resistance have broader potential application to crops like soybean. Further, these results position both traits well for potential partner development. Our HT2 trait is being offered to seed licensing partners for funded continued development opportunity. Second, we completed our second year of field trials for our pod shadow reduction trait in winter oilseed rape. showing promising performance in several customers' elite germplasm. For the 2026 field season, we're pleased to see implementation of the UK legislation enabling our gene-edited trait germplasm to be grown like conventional germplasm as we seek funded partnerships for continued development. Finally, the soybean platform continues to generate partnership interest as we seek to access 125 million acre opportunity. The key message I want to leave you with is this. Our RTDS platform is proving its value across multiple crops and increasingly complex traits. Whether it's delivering rice traits to seven different customers, scaling up biofragrance production or validating next-generation herbicide tolerance traits in canola, we're demonstrating the versatility and commercial potential of our technologies. This technical foundation, combined with our growing regulatory track record, positions us exceptionally well to advance high-value traits through partnerships while maintaining focused execution on our priority revenue drivers. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Carlo for a financial update.
Carlo? Thank you, Greg. Looking at our financials for the third quarter, our cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2025, were $23.9 million, taking into account the impact of implemented cost-saving initiatives. And without giving effect to potential financing transactions that CBIS is pursuing, we expect that existing cash and cash equivalents is sufficient to fund plant operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into early in the second quarter of 2026. I know that our commercialization focus has enabled us to streamline our expenses and operations significantly. We have reduced operating expenses by almost $5 million in the first nine months of 2025 across our SG&A and R&D spending. Moving to our operating results for the third quarter, revenue for Q3 was $615,000 compared to $1.7 million in the year-ago period. This decrease reflects timing of partner-funded program activities. Research and development expense was $10.8 million for Q3 compared to $13 million in the year-ago period. This $2.2 million decrease is primarily due to cost reduction initiatives that we have implemented as part of our streamlined operational focus. Selling, general, and administrative expense was $5.2 million for Q3 compared to $7.7 million in the year-ago period. The 2.5 million decrease is primarily due to cost reduction initiatives. Royalty liability interest expense was 9 million for Q3 and in the year-ago period, which is due to the recognition of interest expense on the royalty liability. Non-operating income net was nominal for Q3 compared to income of 7.7 million in the year-ago period. The decrease in income is driven by the fair value adjustment of the company's liability classified common warrants in 2024. Net loss was $24.3 million for Q3 compared to $201.5 million in the year-ago period. The significant year-over-year improvement reflects the $281.4 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge taken in Q3 2024. As Peter mentioned, We successfully completed consolidation of our Oberlin facility during Q3 2025, and our Roseville facility consolidation remains on track. These actions, along with the reduction in force completed in July, demonstrate tangible progress toward a goal of reducing annual net cash usage to approximately $30 million by 2026. This disciplined approach to capital allocation extends our cash runway while positioning us to capture the significant revenue opportunity ahead, with initial revenues beginning in 2026 and meaningful commercial expansion thereafter. With that financial overview, let me turn it back to Peter for closing remarks.
Thank you, Carlo. Let me close with the key message I want you to take away today. The gene editing revolution in agriculture is happening now, and SEBAS is positioned like a coil spring at the forefront of this transformation. As I've mentioned previously, crop seed genetics are the engine room of the world's food and feed production. The fact we are prioritizing rice is exciting. not only as an extraordinarily large potential annual royalty for shareholders, but a much-needed advancement for helping to improve productivity of a major crop that helps to feed billions of people. When we look at what we've accomplished just so far in 2025, seven rice customer agreements spanning three continents, Successful biofragrance scale-up was an initial payment for our pre-commercial product, and we believe a clear path to approximately $200 million in potential annual royalty revenue from rice traits alone. Our commercial traction is tangible. We have traits moving into customer germplasm, and we continue to see positive field trial results. We're operating in an increasingly favorable global regulatory environment. And we have commercial launches beginning in 2027, with initial revenue starting in 2026 with five fragrances. This isn't a distant aspiration. This is the reality of our near-term commercial opportunity. Our streamlined business focus is working. We remain laser focused on executing our rice commercialization timeline, scaling our sustainable ingredients revenues, and building the foundation for sustainable cash flow generation. We're displaying disciplined capital management, extending our runway, and positioning SEBAS to capture significant value as gene editing becomes one of the standards for agricultural innovation. I'd like to thank you for your support and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress next quarter. Operator, we're now ready to take questions.
Certainly, Dr. Beetham, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions, please press star 1, and you can always remove yourself from the queue if your question has been addressed by pressing star 2. We'll go first this afternoon to Lawrence Alexander of Jefferies.
Hi, so this is Kevin Estak on for Lawrence. Thank you for taking my questions. I guess my first question is around, I guess, what the chances were for potential R&D sharing or bespoke R&D projects in 2026.
Thanks for the question, Kevin. This is Peter. I'm going to start this, answer this question, then quickly hand it over to Greg, because I think there's some wonderful opportunities in this space. I think the key message here is that, as I just mentioned in my closing remarks, the gene editing is happening now. It's not about the technology coming of age. It's actually come of age. And what we're finding now is the real catalyst behind getting to commercial products is regulatory with tailwinds from a regulatory standpoint. And so we're seeing a lot of inbound interest in regarding partnerships on expanding beyond our current focus, which is rice, canola, and soybean, and our productivity traits. So I believe there is significant opportunity in 2026 to expand some of our R&D collaborations. Greg? Yeah, thanks, Peter.
I think we have, as Peter said, a lot of opportunity. The opportunity is not only in the platforms that we're focused on today, but also well beyond that. We developed really, I think, a unique approach within the industry of starting with single cells that we edit and regenerate whole plants. We have that capability for a broad variety of crops, and we've developed many platforms in our past. Further, we've also got multiple traits that that we believe are primed for development, for instance, our HT2 trait, as well as various modes of action for sclerotinia resistance that show really great promise in controlled environments, and we're working through validating those in the field. So, thanks for the question, Kevin.
All right. Understood. Thank you. And I guess my second question, you know, you guys, you know, I read your commentary about sort of the e-regulations Obviously, we're getting toward the end there, but things have moved a little bit slower than originally expected. I guess I was wondering what your thoughts were on when you think that will finally be finalized.
Thank you, Kevin, for the question. This is Peter. I like the fact that you think it's a little bit slower, because for people in the industry, this last year has been accelerated beyond what we expected. It's exciting for us in the fact that Europe, for many years, for literally over two decades, has been recalcitrant to understanding how to get regulatory through for genetically modified organisms. What's been exciting for us on the gene editing front, which is different, is that from 2018, they've made a concerted effort to bring forward legislations. And that legislation was voted on last year in 2024. And this 2025 has been the year where they've been working on the final text. And we believe, based on our understanding through industry groups in Europe, as also some of our seed company partners, is that by year end, they'll have completed that text. And so that final text will start the process of implementation across Europe. And that's a really exciting moment, not just for us, but the whole industry.
All right. Thank you very much.
Can I fill in like a few seconds, Peter? Kevin, sorry, this is Carlo. I'm from Europe, so I always like these questions, of course. I was not at Eurosys this time, but we had a few colleagues over there, and it was quite remarkable. I think almost all the seed companies were realizing that New breeding technologies and gene editing is to come. So I think it was theme number one at EuroCG this year, just a few months ago. So that makes me super excited just realizing what that will mean for us.
Thank you. Thank you.
We go next now to Matthew Venezia of AGP Alliance Global Partners.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Um, so firstly, when we look at the major rice markets that you guys, um, are going to be selling in Latin America, the U S and India, um, how should we be looking at the acres that you have accessible, the total addressable market and kind of, um, what. Is put into the calculation of, of your total addressable market in these markets.
Matt, thank you for the question. This is Peter. Yeah, look, we're super excited about the AgBio collaboration. I think that this is a group that has years of executive experience in large multinationals and building businesses in the seed and trade business in India. And I think we've been very fortunate to work with these guys to really map out our opportunity in India. India is over 120 million acres of rice. It is the second largest exporter of rice in the world. It's a market that we believe we can access through this sort of collaboration with Agbaya. Again, we're looking at this to build relationships with seed companies, bring in material and get it back to them so that we can launch, you know, towards 2030, 2032. You know, as you understand, we do collect royalties. So our estimated trade fees around this, you know, will be in alignment with what we've seen and talked about in Asia, which can be, you know, $1 to $2 per acre or a little bit more that's exciting for us because I think there's an opportunity to really expand that. I'm going to hand it to Greg because he's just actually come back from India where he talked to a number of seed companies.
Yeah, Matt, I'm really, really excited about what, I mean, we're on the beginning of a path with Indian seed companies, working with Agbea, who's helping us with those relationships and helping us develop our presence within India. There is massive demand for rice, but also massive demand for potentially other crops there. In some areas of India, you're rotating rice twice a year, so it becomes like some of the markets within Latin America. So excellent question.
Thanks, Matt. Thank you, guys. Yeah, and in Latin America and the U.S., how many acres are addressable through the current customers that you have right now for rice?
So, Matt, thank you for the question. As we mentioned in our remarks, this last quarter, we've signed on some additional seed companies in Latin America. We're up to seven total, two in the U.S. and five now in Latin America. And that allows us to really address that market. What we're saying right now is between five to seven million, so we've increased it by a couple of million acres from where we were last quarter in Latin America. And that takes us, again, over this 200 million annual royalty goal and objective we have.
Got it. And then lastly from me, obviously canola pod shatter reduction, that was not a trait that panned out right away the way that you thought. Why are HT traits different from PSR and why are they easier to fit into breeding programs for seed distributors and seed companies?
Thanks, Matt. That's a great question. You know, What we've known in this industry for many years is that weed management or herbicide tolerant traits are really like the operating system for many crops. So when a farmer plants seed, every year they need to control their weeds and they either use selective herbicides or non-selective herbicides. And what is really well known now is that that business model is really well understood In fact, on the GMO side of the business, they're still collecting about $4 billion of annual royalties on a trait that was developed in the 90s. What we're able to do is bring novel traits to the marketplace to give farmers options to control their weeds. And so I believe that herbicide tolerance or weed management solutions have a lot of traction quickly into the markets. And that is one of the reasons we're signing up a number of companies in both U.S. and Latin America. And, you know, as we mentioned in our remarks, HT2, another herbicide tolerance trait, we had great field trials this year. We reported on those early, and that's in Canola, and that is in North America. You know, they're a basis for planting crops, and I think that trait is not only multiple geographies but multiple crops. A little different to podshadow in that podshadow reduction is more confined to smaller geographies, and the option now we are looking at is further in the UK and Europe for our podshadow trait in 2028.
And to add a little bit to Peter's comments on weed management, so weed control systems are an operating system for farmers. It's an expectation in developed agriculture that you have a weed control package to enable cultivation, even on smaller acreages like Latin America and India. Weeds take away water nutrients and sunlight away from plants that reduce yield. And so we are not a chemistry company, but over our history, we've been able to develop gene-edited weed control solutions for at least four groups of chemistry, and I believe there's even more potential beyond that. So we're excited with where we are, and we believe that there's strong value for both seed companies, growers, and our shareholders in wheat control traits for development.
Thanks, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll hop back in the queue.
Thanks, Pastor.
Thank you. We'll go next now to Samir Joshi with H.C. Wainwright.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. It's good to see there has been some initial commercialization of bio-frequencies Should we expect sort of ramp up quickly in 2026 on this and get to double-digit mediums, or should we expect sort of single-digit medium revenues from this in 2026?
Thank you, Samir. This is Peter. I really appreciate your question. Black fragments, you know, we're excited to – run through our pre-commercialization scale up this year and it's been very successful. We see opportunity beyond the two fragrances that we have scaled. And so, we do see a ramp up in 2026. We see that the total opportunity in the 20 to $40 million revenue range but early on, it will be in the single-digit millions. But it is just the tip of the iceberg in our minds. The fragrance market is over $65 billion, and this area is looking for alternatives, particularly for the natural fragrances out there. So there's an opportunity, I think, that could expand beyond that.
Understood. Thanks for that. And then, as I understand, the cost-cutting efforts included focus on HT1 and HT3. But there are pipeline trades that you have available for partnership. And there was some announcement in October about the HT2. So I was just wondering, are there any monies being spent still on these pipeline trades, and should we expect that to reflect in R&D or some other line on the income statement?
Samir, thank you for your question. I think that you've captured this fairly well. I think that, you know, with regards to our expanded pipeline trades and crops, like HT2, we're excited with the field results this year. We are in discussions and looking for partners for this area. Right now, it's not a lot of resource for us. We've developed that trait. We've been able to do the edits very efficiently, and we're excited to sort of think through the next steps with, again, this is a multi-crop, multi-geography trait. So I think this is exciting for 2026.
Understood. And then last one from me. The AgWire relationship that is being developed, and I think Greg mentioned other crops as well. So its relationship with seed companies in India, but how about the regulatory environment and what kind of requirements do you have to meet? in order to sell in India?
Excellent question, Samir. This is Greg. So one of the people who I had the opportunity of meeting was the former Minister of Agriculture in India. And as I think you realize from some press releases over the last six months or so, The first gene-edited rice has been planted in India, so there's a lot of appetite for traits in India. And because of that, we're excited with the acceptance, but also with the demand for, in the first instance, our HT1 and HT3 traits there.
Got it. Thanks for all the color, and good luck. Thank you. Thanks.
We'll go next now to Austin Miller at Canaccord.
Hi, good afternoon. So just my first question here on the biofragrance products. So will those be hitting store shelves in 2026 in a pilot capacity and then scaling up into 2027? And then how much should we think about the ramp in 2027 being in terms of revenues?
Thanks, Austin. This is Peter. I'll answer the first part of this question and hand it off to Carlo. We are working with an as-yet-undisclosed CPG with regards to fragrances and getting into products. So what our role is with regards to via fragrance is the scale-up that we've already done on a pre-commercialisation step this year and going through to a full commercial scale next year. They'll be included in various formulations as our understanding. We don't know exactly which products that will end up in next year. We have some guidance on that which we've given the market and we look forward to announcing when those products actually hit the shelves.
Peter, the only thing I would like to add, because you specifically asked about 27, that's still single digit, but then we take off.
Okay. And do you have any specific updates you can provide on the European Parliament?
Yeah. Thanks, Austin. Let me start. I'm going to dive into what's happened in the last couple of months, because I think we've talked about the history of of the EU regulatory, but the trilogue, as they call it, which is the discussion around the parliament, the council, and the commission, has gone very well with the Danish leading that council discussions. They are working on a number of areas, what they call the amendments to the legislation for the final text, And we've been very encouraged with where they've ended up, particularly on some of the detail around how many edits and how many genes within a plant genome are acceptable. It all matches everything that we do internally here at CBUS. And beyond that, labeling and patent discussions have also gone well. So they're very close to, I believe, final text. The next four to six weeks are going to be very interesting to watch as they move through that. The next country who will take this on is Cyprus. If it does flow over into Q1 2026, which we don't expect today, they are also very supportive of completion based on the understanding of how the amendments should be changed.
Understood. Thanks for all the details. Thank you. We go next now to Alex Hatman at Sedoti.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking questions. Just given the, you know, current cash position and runway into early Q2 26 that you mentioned, could you talk a little bit about, you know, kind of the size and range of non-dilutive, dilutive financing options you're exploring and what milestones you expect to achieve with the next raise.
Thanks, Alex, for your question. This is Peter. I think that I'm going to let Carlo answer most of that question, but to start with, we have made a lot of great progress with regards to our near-term revenue opportunities. A combination of that with the catalyst of the tailwinds, we believe, from the regulatory front allows us to be well positioned to look at strategic alternatives of financing the company. And at this stage, we don't have anything more to report on it than that.
Yeah, I think correctly. I think all options are still on the table, like in the past, right? It is not any different at the moment. I think most important is that we progress so well on our milestones, and I think that's what investors want to hear, to continue to support us in the near term. And what you said on the burn, I think you've seen that very spot on. I think quite impressive. A couple of things we did. So we implemented a RIP just after summer, but we did much more than that. There's also streamlining facilities. We shut down the Oberlin facility. Some other costs... saving initiatives, all to get ready for that 30 million annualized net burn next year. But I think most important is that we continue strongly to deliver on the milestones.
Great.
Thanks for the color. And, you know, congrats again on the biofragrance side, initial payment. I had a question on the trade side. Can we get an update on automations and improvements on the real-time delivery system? I think we heard a little bit about AI and ML technologies from Greg, but just curious about from edit to stable trait line technology these days.
Yeah, so excellent question, Alex. really proud of what the team has been able to accomplish and is continuing to lead in our facilities. We're always pushing to become more efficient. So efficiency is improving editing frequency, which I'm really impressed with for rice over the last year. It's increased by an order of magnitude. The regeneration frequency for our key crops, really impressed by the improvements there. And to your point in terms of automation, so we're a semi-automated process, but a lot of the really repetitive mundane tasks we're able to do with robotic assistance, which really enables our team of scientists to focus on the hard problems and the more repetitive tasks are handled by robots, both for some of our cell culture process, but also for a lot of the liquid handling. And then because we've been around for a quarter of a century, we have a lot of data in the editing space, in the what to edit space, and also with what you've seen generally for structural biology and intelligence there in terms of predicting and helping support some of the edits and accelerating the what-to-edit space so that we're making the right choices as we move edits into our production pipeline. So excellent question, Alan.
Thank you. That's all from us.
Thank you. And gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions this afternoon. Dr. Beetham, I'd like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.
Thank you. And thank you all for joining us on today's call. As I've said in the past, I continue to be so proud to be part of the SEVIS team. As you've just heard, we've made excellent progress this past quarter. with a renewed focus and streamlined business. You know, what I hope you've heard is that gene editing is happening now, and it's delivering across multiple sectors. As Greg just mentioned, some of the incredible things that are going on in the company with regards to the understanding of what to edit with AI and ML, as well as automation. You know, for us to be time-bound and predictable for our seed company partners delivering back their elite genetics is really going to drive our near-term revenue. And we're excited to be leading this charge in the ag industry. And we do see these near-term revenue targets like herbicide tolerance in rice, a clear path to that market, which is fantastic. You know, you think about the focus with regards to the different geographies we're targeting. This is a huge commercial expansion of trade royalties. That's why we see ourselves as a coiled spring. Finally, we clearly see the seed industry also recognised in the global harmony of regulatory. Carlo mentioned our team just coming back from EuroSeeds, understanding that this is a tailwind behind our expanded business opportunities And we really look forward to a great year in 2026 and beyond. So, again, thank you for joining. Thank you for your support and time today.
Thank you, Dr. Beetham. Again, ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude the SEVIS third quarter 2025 results conference call. Again, thanks so much for joining us, everyone, and we wish you all a great remainder of your day. Goodbye.