Monsanto Bets on Next Phase of High-Tech Crops, but It's Not Alone
07 May 2017 - 11:29PM
Dow Jones News
By Jacob Bunge
Monsanto Co. is opening its next chapter in genetic technology
-- and may face tougher competition.
The St. Louis company is investing in gene editing in an effort
to keep an edge over rival suppliers of high-tech crop seeds.
Monsanto has signed a string of licensing deals to add new
gene-editing capabilities to its established methods of genetically
modifying seeds, or creating GMOs.
Dr. Robert Fraley, Monsanto's chief technology officer, said
gene editing could help corn plants thrive in dry conditions, or
produce tastier bell peppers. "It's a breakthrough technology," he
said. "It's going to create just a wave of innovation."
But startups and established competitors like DuPont Co. and Dow
Chemical Co. are also working on gene-edited plants, which can
advance through regulatory reviews faster than seeds developed with
earlier biotechnology techniques.
Gene editing is different from the genetic modifications that
Monsanto and other companies pioneered in the 1980s.
Gene editing allows scientists to make changes to a plant's
already-existing DNA with the same precision that word-processing
programs can edit text, scientists say. In the crop-seed business,
genetic modification up to this point mainly has involved inserting
new genes from bacteria or another plant. That difference can mean
a shorter review by U.S. regulatory agencies for gene-edited
crops.
The latter technology is what created Monsanto's "Roundup Ready"
seeds -- modified to resist herbicides -- and turned the company
over the past 20 years into the world's largest seller of crop
seeds. That GMO seed business last year spurred a $57 billion
takeover offer from German chemical conglomerate Bayer AG, which
the companies aim to close by the end of 2017.
But seed giants and Farm Belt upstarts view gene editing as the
new front in genetic technology, potentially offering a cheaper and
easier method of tweaking plants' DNA.
Emerging technologies such as Crispr-Cas9 and Exzact allow
scientists to change a plant's performance without inserting genes
from other species or bacteria. Gene editing can also help
researchers insert new genes more precisely into plants' DNA,
hastening the development of biotech plants that can produce their
own bug-killing proteins.
Over the past year, Monsanto has licensed two different Crispr
versions, Crispr-Cas and Crispr-Cpf1, as well as the Exzact
technology and another gene-editing platform developed by
TargetGene Biotechnologies Ltd. The company has recruited medical
and pharmaceutical researchers to explore the technologies'
potential to tweak the genes of corn, soybeans, cotton and
vegetables in ways that will make farmers more profitable.
"We don't think there's a silver bullet in this," said Hugh
Grant, Monsanto's chief executive. "We've tried to play across the
emerging front of these technologies."
Dr. Fraley said that in a decade the most advanced seeds could
boast a dozen added genes alongside various genomic edits to resist
disease, drought, bugs and weed-killing chemicals.
Monsanto's seeds won't be alone in the new bioengineered
marketplace.
Bayer has set up its own joint venture centered on Crispr gene
editing and plans to evaluate its potential to develop new crops.
DuPont, Monsanto's biggest rival in the U.S. seed business, has
forged its own licenses for gene-editing technologies and plans to
sell within four years a gene-edited variety of waxy corn, used to
thicken food products and make adhesives. Dow, which is pursuing a
merger with DuPont, joined with California-based Sangamo
BioSciences to develop Exzact, a separate gene-editing
technology.
Smaller firms pursuing the technology include Calyxt Inc., based
in Minnesota, which is developing a strain of wheat that has been
gene-edited to reduce gluten content, and a soybean that produces
healthier vegetable oil. San Diego-based Cibus has developed a
variety of canola resistant to certain herbicides.
Gene-edited crops can face looser regulation in the U.S. than
crops that have been souped up with outside DNA. Winning world-wide
regulatory approval for traditional biotech crops can take 13 years
and cost $136 million, according to a 2011 study by research firm
Phillips McDougall Ltd.
That opens the field to a wider range of competitors, said James
Radtke, head of product development for Cibus. "As long as that
continues, a company that's got a smaller budget can actually be a
player," he said.
Write to Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 07, 2017 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
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