Evogene Ltd.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Evogen's third quarter 2023 results conference call. All participants are present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded November 15, 2023. Before we begin, I would like to caution that certain statements made during this earnings conference call by Evogen's management will constitute forward-looking statements that relate to future events, risks, and uncertainties regarding business strategy, operations, and future performance and results of Evogen. I encourage you to review Evogen's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and read the note regarding forward-looking statements in today's earnings release, which states that statements made in the earnings release and in a similar way on this earnings conference call that are not historical facts may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For example, Evagen is using forward-looking statement in this call when it discusses the additional orders for Castera's Castor Seeds and new collaborations to generate cash flow for the group. Biomeca advances in preparing for a pre-IND meeting for BMC128 expected tests of LAV321 in field trials by several multinational companies and Castera's ability to mitigate production risks and to retain additional seed production subcontractors. All forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of the announcement of results. Many of the factors that impact whether forward-looking statements will come true are beyond the control of Evogen and may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. Evogen is under no obligation to update publicly or alter forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. except as otherwise required by law. We expressly disclaim any obligation to do so. More detailed information about the risk factors potentially adversely impacting our performance can be found in our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Starting the call today is the President and CEO of Evogen, Ofer Khabib, joined by Evogen's CFO, Yaron Eldad. That said, I would like to turn over the call to Ofer Khabib, President and CEO of Evogen. Mr. Khabib, please go ahead.

Thank you and good day, everyone. Today, I will review Evogen's activities, our financial stability, and recent achievements. I will also provide an update on Evogen's potential catalyst expected in the near future. I will discuss some of our subsidiaries' recent accomplishments and their positive impact on Evogen. Bear in mind that our subsidiaries leverage Evogen's technology as their main competitive advantage, and their accomplishments demonstrate the power and the value of our AI-driven tech engines underlying their product development process. But first, I would like to start with a personal note in light of the war with Hamas. The recent events in Israel, starting October 7, 2023, have brought significant changes to our nation. We find ourselves at a time of profound reflection. Our hearts go out to all those directly and indirectly impacted by those evil acts. We pause to remember and honor the memory of David Schwarzman, a cherished member of the Evogen group and his wife Orly, who tragically lost their life during this brutal attack on Israel. May the souls rest in peace. and made their memory serve as a reminder of our people's enduring strength and resilience. I want to emphasize that this loss only deepens our resolve to succeed and thrive and carry our business forward, getting back to Evogen's ongoing operation status and meet those challenges together with our subsidiaries. we stand strong in our commitment to innovation and progress. Our strategic focus remains strong and our dedicated team continues to work tirelessly to achieve our objectives for 2023 and set the course for 2024. I would now like to review Evogen's positive financial status, beginning with our cash balance across Evogen and its subsidiaries, and our near-terms financing strategy. As of the end of the third quarter, Evogen had a cash balance of $37.2 million. This included LaviBio with $7.1 million, Biomica with $14.6 million, and Evogen, together with Agplanus, Castera, and Canonic, with $15.5 million. It's worth highlighting that Avogen's cash balance does not yet reflect the current and expected revenue from Castera, while on the other hand, our cash balance at the end of the quarter is influenced by the significant upfront costs incurred in producing Castera seeds in Brazil and Africa. Additionally, it's important to mention that Labib Bayo's cash balance does not yet include an additional $2.5 million expected in January 2024 as part of the pending commercial agreement with Corteva, as was announced by the company in July. Furthermore, we anticipate additional orders for Castera's castor seeds and new collaborations to generate cash flow for the group throughout 2024 and on. further enhancing our financial stability. Our revenues for the current quarter, which totaled $3.8 million, demonstrate the successful execution of Evogenza's business model, drawing cash and value from the activity of our subsidiaries. Notably, these revenues include approximately $0.9 million from Castera's sales of castor seeds, and $2.5 million generated by LaviBio at a licensing fee in the frame of its collaboration with Corteva. These collaborations not only added value to LaviBio for the benefit of its shareholders, but also funds its ongoing operations, reducing the need for additional funding from LvivBio's shareholders. Concerning Evogen's ongoing activity, in the passing quarter, we continue improving our three AI tech engines, adding new applications, and upgrading existing features. We intend to make our AI tech engines as accessible and user-friendly as possible. And so, based on feedback from our partners, we continuously improve the UI UX. As I emphasized in previous calls, Avogen's strategy for capturing value from our AI tech engines revolves around utilizing or licensing these engines as enablers for product development. Evogen employs two main business structures to execute this strategy in order to generate revenue and value. The first is collaboration with leading companies. Evogen collaborates with industry leaders to develop defined products by utilizing Evogen's AI tech engine. Typically, our partners take the lead in later stage development and product commercialization. Using this structure, Evogen can benefit from the following revenue stream. Affirm payments, R&D fees, milestone payments, and most importantly, royalties from our partners' sales of the end products. The second business structure is establishing independent subsidiaries each dedicated to a specific commercial field within the life science market. The subsidiaries hold licenses to use Evogen's unique AI tech engine for product development. Using this structure, Evogen can benefit from the following revenue streams. License fee for the use of our AI tech engines, dividends to Evogen as the shareholders, And most importantly, when an exit event occurs, as long as Avogen remains a major shareholder, a significant one-time payment is expected. In past years, our efforts focused mainly on establishing and supporting the activities of our subsidiaries. They proudly reported their delivery of various impressive results, of which most recent I will delve into shortly. As stated in previous calls, during this year, we invested in establishing collaborations directly between Avogen and industry leaders, aiming to leverage our AI tech engine for product development. We are very excited with the initial fruits of these initiatives, as demonstrated by the recently reported collaboration with Colors Farm and Ben Gurion University pioneer crustacean gene editing technology aiming to enhance crustacean traits. The collaboration is powered by a grant from the Israeli Innovation Authority and utilized Evogen's generator AI tech engine. We hope and believe that this collaboration marks the beginning of path to additional collaborations in the near future that will benefit from our three AI tech engines and generate significant revenue and value for Evogen and its partners. Now, I would like to review the main achievements of our subsidiaries in the last few months who, as part of their competitive advantage, are all using Evogen's tech engines under exclusive license for their product development. I would like to start with the two subsidiaries using MicroBoost AI to accelerate and direct their product development, LaviBio and Biomica. LaviBio is at the forefront of next-generation ag-biological products. With Evogen as its majority shareholder, It's worth noting that Labibio has two additional significant shareholders, Corteva, a multinational ag tech leader, and ICL, a global mineral and ag tech company. Behind their equity investment, both Corteva and ICL are actively engaged in collaborative efforts with Labibio to innovate and develop novel agriculture biological solutions. In July, La Vie Bio announced that it entered another licensing agreement with Corteva. The agreement grants Corteva exclusive rights to develop further and commercialize two of La Vie Bio's lead biofungicide product candidates, LAV311 and LAV312, targeting fruit rots. The agreement follows two years of independent field validation trials conducted by both companies. Under this agreement, Labibayo was set to receive an initial payment of approximately $5 million in two installments. The first payment of $2.5 million was already received in September 2023, and the second payment is expected in the first quarter of 2024. La Vie Bio will also be eligible for additional future milestone payments and royalty from Corteva's sales of these future products. This collaboration with Corteva not only strengthened La Vie Bio's financial position, but also significantly enhanced its overall perception in the ag market. Furthermore, the revenue generated from these collaborations mitigates the need for external financing, further solidifying La Vie Bio's financial stability and ability to continue advancing its cutting-edge agri-biological products. Last week, La Vie Bio announced significant progress in its biofungicide program with LAV321, designed to combat Downy Mildew and late blight disease. Field trials conducted in 2023 across Europe and the United States have yielded impressive results. I would like to share that next year, Lab 321 will be tested in field trials by several multinational companies, for some of which it will be the second year of validation. Biomica, which develops microbiome-based therapeutics for human health, is the second subsidiary using Evogen's MicroBoost AI tech engine to discover and optimize microbes with therapeutic potential. It's worth noting that in addition to Evogen's majority holder, Biomica has another major shareholder, Shanghai Healthcare Capital, one of the largest venture capital groups focusing on healthcare located in China. Biomica's leading product candidate, BMC128, for the treatment of cancer patients is now in phase one clinical trial. The trial, conducted in Israel at the Rambam Healthcare Campus, aimed to evaluate BMC128's safety and tolerability alongside Bristol-Myers Squibb's Optivo, immunotherapy for respiratory patients with NSCLC, melanoma, or RCC. In August, Biomica opened a second site in Israel at the Davidov Cancer Center to allow the recruitment of additional patients to the clinical trial. The trial is planned to include 10 to 12 patients. seven have enrolled. The company now focused on preparing all the required material for a pre-IND meeting for BMC128 in its Immune Oncology program expected to take place in the first quarter of 2024. I would like to continue with the two subsidiaries using Generator AI to accelerate and direct their product development, Castera and Canonic. Castera focuses on developing an integrated solution to enable large-scale commercial cultivation of castor beans through its unique elite seed varieties. Castera aims to address the global demand for a stable castor oil supply, mainly for the biodiesel industry. The past year was pivotal for Castera. Our vision of becoming a significant player in the biodiesel industry progresses with seed order from a world-leading energy and gas company totaling $11.3 million for castor cultivation in Africa to support the growing demand for biodiesel. In the last quarter, Castera successfully delivered its first shipment of high-yield, high-oil castor seeds from Brazil and Zambia to an African region valued at approximately $0.9 million. Castera is planning to supply the rest of the ordered seed at the beginning of 2024. In recent months, Castera has made substantial steps in expanding its overseas seed production capabilities through subcontractors. Based on Castera's observations of this move, company management learned that its complexity is high and requires additional resources and extensive physical attendance of Castera's professionals in the overseas production sites. Castera is currently investing efforts in expanding its workforce to support the subcontractors it's engaged with and in parallel looks for additional seed production subcontractors to manage risks. These efforts aim to ensure a long-term, reliable, and sustainable seed production infrastructure that will allow the supply of high-quality cattle seeds for existing order by the second quarter of 2024 and provide a stable and scalable platform for future growth. Moving on to Canonic, which focuses on developing best-in-class medical cannabis products. Canonic's main targets for the near term are to grow its cannabis sales in Israel, benefiting from its elite unique strain while significantly reducing expenses. As Canonic's go-to-market strategy includes out-licensing to subcontractors the commercial growth of the cannabis strain toward the final product, it is crucial to select subcontractors with the right skills and expertise to maximize the genetic value of canonic strains meeting the premium market criteria. To this end, during the last quarter, we engaged with a new Israeli cultivator, Evergreen, to grow canonic variety, and currently four elite strains are grown in Evergreen's greenhouse site. In parallel, the company continues evaluating and negotiating with various subcontractors overseas for cultivation in indoor growth facilities. The Israeli medical cannabis market is characterized by a vast spectrum of products, both grown locally and from abroad. Capturing the patient's attention is challenging, leading to price dropping even for premium products. To address this challenge, Canonic is focusing its marketing efforts on the frequent launching of new products in limited batches. During the third quarter, Canonic launched two new products, Tango and Two Aces, and this week an additional product, Southside, was launched. Lastly, I would like to review our subsidiary, Agplanus, which utilizes Evogen's campus AI tech engine to accelerate and direct its product development. Agplanus aims to discover next-generation innovative crop protection products, including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, and commercializing them through collaboration with world-leading partners. Major alchemical companies, such as BASF, Bayer, Corteva, and Syngenta, dominate today's crop protection industry. Still, they look to smaller agtech companies like Agplanus to discover new target proteins and small molecules that inhibit such target proteins, serving as the active ingredient in a commercial crop protection product. Agplanus is the company that addressed this need and explores partnership with these major industry players. As I stated in the previous call, there is a growing interest in Acplanus' product pipeline, especially in our lead target protein, APTH1, and the small molecules that bind to this protein, as a candidate for a novel herbicide with a broad weed control spectrum. We believe that this interest can lead to a collaboration agreement between Acplanus and a leading industry player. As described, All the subsidiaries are advancing their business targets. As shareholders, Evogen is very proud of this progress. Bear in mind that the subsidiary's success is testimony to the power and value of Evogen's AI tech engine to accelerate and direct life science-based product development. Looking forward, when evaluating the needs of our wholly-owned subsidiaries, and the commercial potential of each, we intend to invest more efforts and resources in Castera, since we see significant potential in the biodiesel market, which Castor Oil can support, while reducing our investment in Canonic due to the challenging market condition of the medical cannabis sector. With this, I pass the call to Yaron Eldad, Evogen CFO, to review our financial reports for the third quarter. Yaron?

Thank you, Ofer. As of September 30, 2023, Evogen had consolidated cash, cash equivalents, and short-term bank deposits of approximately $37.2 million. Biomica accounted for $14.6 million of this sum, and La Vie Bio holds $7.1 million. Evergen, together with Castera, Canonic, and Ag Planners, possessed an aggregate of $15.5 million in cash. The injections of funds from the last round of investment in July strengthens Evergen's financial position and provides us with the resources needed to execute our future plans effectively. As already stated, the $15.5 million reflected in the cash balance of Evergen together with Castera, Canonic and ActPlanus do not include any amount due to the purchase orders received by Castera in the last few months, which were partially supplied during the third quarter of 2023. And that the $7.1 million reflected in the cash balance of La Vie Bayeux does not include the $2.5 million, which represents the second half of the upfront payment from the licensing agreement with Corteva that is expected to be received at the beginning of 2024. During the third quarter, the consolidated cash usage was approximately $4.8 million, or approximately $3.2 million, excluding La Vie Bio, which provided positive net cash of $1.1 million, due to $2.5 million upfront payment from the licensing agreement with Corteva, Biomica, and $1.2 million of advanced payments to Costero subcontractors for caster seed production. I will now review the P&L main items. Revenues for the third quarter of 2023 were approximately $3.8 million compared to approximately half a million dollars in the same period the previous year. The revenue increase was primarily due to revenues recognized by La Vie Bayo, because the licensing agreement was Corteva, and due to revenues recognized by Castera for the supply of castor seeds during the third quarter of 2023. R&D expenses for the third quarter of 2023, which are reported net of non-refundable grants received, were approximately $5.1 million and remained stable as compared to approximately $5 million in the same period in the previous year. Sales and marketing expenses were approximately $850,000 for the third quarter of 2023 and slightly decreased as compared to approximately $895,000 in the same period the previous year. The main contributor to this expense decrease was a reduction in personnel expenses at Canonic. General and administrative expenses were approximately $1.5 million in the third quarter of 2023 and remained stable compared to approximately $1.6 million in the same period in the previous year. Operating loss for the third quarter of 2023 was approximately $4.2 million compared to an operating loss of approximately $7.1 million in the same period in the previous year. The decrease in operating loss is mainly due to the increased revenues as mentioned above. Financing income net for the third quarter of 2023 was approximately $320,000 compared to financing expenses net of approximately $61,000 in the same period in the previous year. This difference was mainly due to increase in interest income during the third quarter of 2023 as compared to the same period in the previous year. Net loss for the third quarter of 2023 was approximately $3.9 million compared to a net loss of approximately $7.2 million in the same period in the previous year. The decrease in the net loss is mainly due to the increased revenues recognized in the third quarter of 2023. With that, Ofra and I would like to open the call for any questions you may have. Operator?