Ag-biotech startup gets close, but not too close, to Monsanto

A Research Triangle Park (N.C.) startup biotechnology company, Athenix, has grown to 45 employees and has raised a total of $33.5 million in venture capital, and they are moving their headquarters to accommodate that growth, according to an article by Amanda Jones Hoyle, writing in this week’s Triangle Business Journal.

Athenix develops products and technologies for agricultural and industrial applications, including genes for resistance to the key insect pests of corn and tolerance to glyphosate.

In a bit of irony, the company will move to a 30,000 square foot building in RTP and will be sharing office and laboratory space with Monsanto. The office space was formerly held by Icoria, a crop gene research company that, in another bit of irony, was acquired in March 2005 for $6.75 million by, you guessed it, Monsanto.

Nadine Carozzi, vice president of product development and an Athenix co-founder, told the Journal that nothing should be read into the move, stating than there are no talks with Monsanto about research collaboration or a merger.

According to this press release from the company, recent field trials successfully demonstrated traits for glyphosate resistance and resistance to European corn borer, corn rootworm and corn earworm.

In a separate effort, Athenix has demonstrated activity of its nematode resistance genes in plants and is planning to test a stack of its glyphosate tolerance and nematode resistance genes in soybean field trials in 2007.

The company projects it will bring its first products to market in 2009 or 2010, Carozzi told the Journal.

Read more about their technologies here>>

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 4:34 pm and is filed under All blog posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.