Benzinga | Mar 25, 2021 08:46AM EDT

Origin Agritech Signs Collaboration Agreement With Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Foor The Development Of GMO Corn Hybrids; Financial Details Not Disclosed

Origin Agritech Ltd. (NASDAQ:SEED) (the "Company" or "Origin"), an agriculture technology company, today announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., Ltd. (DBN) for the development of commercial GMO corn hybrids.

Under the terms of the agreement, the parties will collaborate on research and development of new GMO corn hybrids by integrating DBN's approved traits and Origin's elite corn hybrids to develop potential commercial GMO hybrid corn for Chinese farmers. In the agreement, both parties have also agreed to explore potential collaborations in GMO corn seed production, marketing, and technical services in the future GMO corn market, which would allow the two firms to expand their collaboration over time.

DBN is a Chinese agriculture conglomerate with over 14,000 employees and has over $2 billion in annual sales. Beijing Dabeinong Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (DBNBC), which is DBN's holding subsidiary, is the leading biotechnology research entity in China. It received the approval of three Corn Bio-safety Certificates and one Soybean Bio-safety Certificate recently. Origin has built one of the largest corn seed germplasms among Chinese seed companies with over 200 thousand corn germplasm samples and breeding materials in its germplasm banks, which allows Origin to develop corn varieties for all major corn planting regions in China. Origin has also built its GMO corn pipeline in through 15 years of extensive research efforts and has several GMO traits under the safety approval process.