Yield10 Bioscience Announces Notice of Allowance for U.S. Patent Covering Crop Yield Trait C3003

WOBURN, Mass., April 23, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq:YTEN), an agricultural bioscience company which uses its “Trait Factory” to develop high value seed traits for the agriculture and food industries, today announced that it has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office allowing a patent application covering the use of C3003 to improve seed yield in crops. 

The Notice of Allowance relates to U.S. patent application No. 2016/032,6541 entitled “Plants with enhanced photosynthesis and methods of manufacture thereof.” Yield10 is the exclusive licensee of this intellectual property from The University of Massachusetts. The yield trait is based on a transporter gene derived from algae that can be used to increase seed yield in plants. C3003 is believed to play a role in carbon capture and directing carbon to seed. Yield10 is testing C3003 as a technology to increase seed yield in major crops including Camelina, canola, soybean and corn. Further work by Yield10 with C3003 has produced additional discoveries including a promising novel yield trait based on a plant gene and potentially accessible through CRISPR genome-editing.  Yield10 filed a patent application on discoveries related to C3004 in 2018.    

“The C3003 seed yield trait represents an important cornerstone of our intellectual property portfolio and technology platform,” said Oliver Peoples, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Yield10. “We have generated a series of encouraging results testing C3003 in field studies of oilseed crops, including canola, and will continue field evaluation this year. In addition, we recently expanded the evaluation of C3003 as part of our early development program in corn. We plan to continue to generate intellectual property around our discoveries and form collaborations to advance development and commercialization of our traits in the major commercial crops.”   

About Yield10 Bioscience

Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. is an agricultural bioscience company which uses its “Trait Factory” to develop high value seed traits for the agriculture and food industries to achieve step-change improvements in crop yield to enhance global food security. Yield10 has an extensive track record of innovation based around optimizing the flow of carbon in living systems. The “Trait Factory” has two components: the “GRAIN” computational modeling platform, which is used to identify specific gene changes designed to improve crop performance, and the deployment of those changes into crops using genome-editing or traditional agricultural biotechnology approaches. The purpose of the “Trait Factory” is to engineer precise alterations to gene activity and the flow of carbon in plants to produce higher yields with lower inputs of land, water or fertilizer. Yield10 is advancing several yield traits it has developed in crops such as canola, soybean, rice, wheat and corn. Yield10 is headquartered in Woburn, MA and has an Oilseeds Center of Excellence in Saskatoon, Canada.

For more information about the company, please visit .

(YTEN-G)

Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release which are not strictly historical, including, without limitation, whether C3003 can be used to increase seed yield in plants, and whether C3004 may be accessible through CRISPR genome-editing, constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, including the risks and uncertainties detailed in Yield10 Bioscience's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yield10 assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the matters described herein.

Contacts: 

Yield10 Bioscience:

Lynne H. Brum, (617) 682-4693,

Investor Relations: 

Bret Shapiro, 561-479-8566,

Managing Director, CORE IR

Media Inquiries:

Eric Fischgrund,

FischTank Marketing and PR