Benzinga | May 26, 2021 12:30PM EDT

Shares of Medical Cannabis-Related Evogene Slightly Up On First Quarter Earnings

Computational biology company Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ:EVGN) reported Wednesday its first-quarter financial results with revenue of $333,000, compared to $75,000 in the same period of 2020.

Q1 Financial Highlights

* The company's gross profit for the period amounted to $62,000, which compares to $36,000 in the corresponding quarter of the prior year;

* The total operating expenses were of $6.32 million, compared to $6.89 million in the same period of 2020;

* The net loss for the quarter reached $7.1 million, which compares to a loss of $7.2 million in the first quarter of the previous year;

* Its operating loss for the period was $6.3 million, versus $6.9 million in the same period of 2020; A slightly lowered operating loss could be accredited to higher revenues from partnership agreements;

* At the end of the reporting period, Evogene held around $70.1 million in cash, cash-related accounts, bank deposits and marketable securities.

"A major corporate target for this year and the year following is value creation and its recognition by the capital markets, through Evogene's subsidiaries," Mr. Ofer Haviv, Evogene's president and CEO, said. "Two main paths to achieve this target in life-science based companies, such as our subsidiaries, are: product advancement and commercialization, and demonstration of their underlying technological advantage.

"With respect to product advancement, in 2021-2022, all our subsidiaries have significant milestones for pipeline advancement, and some of them are even expected to reach first product launches."

Q1 Milestones Per Subsidiaries

* Biomica, a subsidiary of Evogene obtained new positive pre-clinical results in its immune-oncology program;

* The company's subsidiary Canonic signed the production and distribution agreements in Israel with Tikun Olam-Cannbit Pharmaceuticals to allow the rollout of Cannonic's first products in 2022;

* Its subsidiary Lavie Bio hired Russ Putland as Vice President Commerical;

* The company's Ag-Seed sector signed a partnership agreement with a U.S. company Plastomics.

Rehovot, Israel -- headquartered Evogene is working on creating new products for life-science-based industries such as human health, agriculture and industrial applications. It has designed its Computational Predictive Biology (CPB) platform, which enables the computational design of microbes, small molecules, and genes as key elements for life-science products. Its several subsidiaries rely on this platform for the development of various products, including medical cannabis.

Price Action

Evogene's shares were trading 5.75% higher at $3.50 per share at the time of writing.

Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis on Unsplash