Yield10 Bioscience Achieves Key Milestones in Early Development Program in Corn to Evaluate Novel Traits

WOBURN, Mass., March 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq:YTEN), an agricultural bioscience company, announced today that it achieved key milestones in an early development program in corn to evaluate novel seed yield traits. Corn is the highest value commercial crop grown in the United States.

The Company’s corn program began in early 2019, centered around the successful deployment of novel traits discovered by Yield10 into corn by a major third-party agriculture company partner. With this phase of the program complete, Yield10 recently contracted an additional third-party agriculture company to create homozygous and hybrid corn lines, bulk-up seed, and conduct field testing of the novel traits in corn to evaluate the impact on seed yield.

“Yield10’s corn development program continues to progress on schedule, benefiting from access to critical industry expertise and resources that will be crucial to the evaluation of our novel traits in this high value crop,” said Kristi Snell, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer of Yield10 Bioscience. “The utilization of another third-party agriculture company for creating and field testing hybrid lines will provide our scientific team with field data on our traits deployed in elite corn lines.”

“The completed deployment of our traits in corn and the start of the next phase of development which will include field tests, are key milestones for Yield10 as it firmly places us further along the path toward licensing and commercialization of our novel yield traits in this important crop,” said Oliver Peoples, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Yield10 Bioscience. “Further, we continue to establish working relationships with major agricultural companies whose feedback and expertise provide us greater context and insight into how to commercialize this program. We believe success in our corn program would further demonstrate the versatility of our GRAIN platform, positioning us for commercial partnerships and licensing opportunities.”

The yield traits in the corn development program include C3003, C3004, and C3011, as well as the transcription factors C4001, C4002, and C4003.

Corn is planted on approximately 90 million acres and is the highest value crop in the United States for seed company revenue. Harvests from recent years have reached approximately 15 billion bushels, worth approximately $50 billion. Improving seed yield in corn would increase revenue for growers and contribute to global food security.  

About Yield10 Bioscience

Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. is an agricultural bioscience company developing crop innovations to improve crop yields and enhance sustainable global food security. The Company utilizes its proprietary “GRAIN“ (Gene Ranking Artificial Intelligence Network) gene discovery platform to identify gene targets to improve yield performance and value in major commercial food and feed crops. Yield10 uses its Camelina oilseed platform to rapidly evaluate and field test new trait leads enabling the translation of promising new traits into the major commercial crops.  As a path toward commercialization, Yield10 is pursuing a partnering approach with agricultural companies to drive new traits into development in crops such as canola, soybean and corn. The Company is also developing Camelina as a platform crop for producing nutritional oils and specialty products such as PHA biomaterials for use in water treatment applications. Yield10 is headquartered in Woburn, MA and has an Oilseeds Center of Excellence in Saskatoon, Canada. 

For more information about the company, please visit , or follow the Company on , and .

(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, statements regarding the Company's intentions with regard to achieving the research objectives in the corn program, including its ability to produce new varieties of corn that are higher yielding, continuing to generate key proof points in crops of high commercial interest, the potential impact of results in the corn program on prospects for commercial partnerships and licensing opportunities, the potential impact of an improvement in seed yield in corn, and the timing for completion of the key steps in the early development program in corn, 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 announcements described herein.

Contacts:  

Yield10 Bioscience:

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

Investor Relations Contact: 

Bret Shapiro, (561) 479-8566,

Managing Director, CORE IR

Media Inquiries:

Eric Fischgrund, FischTank Marketing and PR