Yield10 Bioscience Announces Notice of Allowance for U.S. Patent Covering Crop Yield Trait C4001

WOBURN, Mass., Aug. 12, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq:YTEN), an agricultural bioscience company that 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 its patent application covering the use of C4001 to improve productivity in crops. 

The Notice of Allowance relates to Yield10’s U.S. patent application titled “Transcriptional Regulation for Improved Plant Productivity.” This patent application describes the C4001 yield trait, which is based on the discovery of novel transcription factor genes in plants where an increase in the productivity of photosynthesis results in significant increases in biomass yield and stress tolerance. In the second quarter of 2019, the China National Intellectual Property Administration also granted Yield10 a patent on C4001.  

In 2018, Yield10 researchers published a scientific paper in demonstrating that switchgrass plants containing C4001 (PvBMY1) showed an increase in leaf and stem biomass of 75 percent to 100 percent, and an increase in root biomass of 85 percent to 140 percent as compared to control plants. Yield10 is evaluating C4001 to improve seed yield in corn in a program started in early 2019, and to improve biomass yield in forage sorghum through a signed in 2018 with Forage Genetics International, LLC. 

“Our C4001 yield trait represents a promising target for improving biomass yield in certain commercial food and feed crops,” said Oliver Peoples, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Yield10. “We initially identified and characterized the activity of C4001 using switchgrass as a model crop. Currently, C4001 is being evaluated as a strategy to increase productivity and stress tolerance in corn and forage sorghum, where improvements to the crops could provide an important production benefit to growers.” 

Yield10 was launched in January 2017 and currently has 21 patents and pending patent applications on discoveries broadly related to new technologies that improve crop productivity and performance.  In 2019, Yield10 was granted a U.S. , a yield trait based on a gene from algae. Yield10 expects the U.S. patent for C4001 to issue later this year. 

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 of at least 10 to 20 percent in order to enhance global food security and to develop specialty crop products. 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.

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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 C4001 can be used to improve biomass yield and stress tolerance in plants, whether C4001 may improve seed yield in corn, whether C4001 may improve biomass yield in forage sorghum, and the timing for issuance of the U.S. patent for C4001, 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

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FischTank Marketing and PR