Ofer Haviv: I can disclose the gross margin of our business. We prefer to keep this information internally. But I think that if you review the margins of other companies in the field of sell seeds, so usually the margin are pretty high. But it makes sense because don’t forget the time that you need to invest in order to develop the seed for seed company the R&D costs are quite heavy. The good news from Casterra is that we reached to this variety that we are offering now to our partners. We investing in this activity in the last 10 years and we invest around, I think, $20 million through the years. So now we are starting to see the benefit from this investment. And this is also what put us ahead to any other company that would like to move into this field.
So the margin in the seed bins are pretty high because they supposed to cover the expense and the risk that companies are putting in the development of the elite variety, exactly like Evogene did, like Casterra did in the past 10 years.
Brian Wright: Great. Thank you so much.
Operator: The next question is from Ben Haynor of Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.
Benjamin Haynor: Good day gentlemen, thanks for taking the questions. First off, for me just on AgPlenus’ on the APTH1 target, how quickly do you anticipate a collaboration for our partnership could materialize there? And what are you doing or what can you presently do to kind of advance development of the target?
Ofer Haviv: Nir, would you like to take this question or you prefer me to address it?
Nir Arbel: If you want, you can go ahead. If not, I’ll…
Ofer Haviv: So I will try to address it. And Nir, if you want, you can add. So I think that usually working with big corporation, usually it takes a while before you engage in agreement. It includes the validation period, it still include negotiation times. But I think that usually when a company feel comfortable to emphasize that there is an interest in one of its program, at least the way that Evogene is working. So, it means that we have some confidence that we are not far away from the point where we might announce such a collaboration. So again, you never know if it will happen. This is why we, this is the nature of the business. But we feel comfortable that we are in the stage that there is a some probability that we will engage in such collaboration.
I think that AgPlenus’ is an amazing example to what Evogene, the technology company can develop and offer to our partners. AgPlenus’ is using ChemPass AI tech engine and the progress this engine made in the last year, it was remarkable. We announced about TargetSelector, we announced about some other app that we developed. And I think what is attract the attention of our potential partners is not just the result that you can see on what we achieve until now, but it also gets excited from our ability to improve the efficacy and increase probability of success by using the tech engine of Evogene. So what I’d like to speak, what was hope to see in a future collaboration that AgPlenus’ will be engaged, is not just maybe a nice upfront payment, but also ongoing collaboration with R&D fee, et cetera.
So there is high expectation from what AgPlenus’ can do. Yes, it’s still in early stage. Yes, we still need to demonstrate more and more the power of our technology, but the company is definitely in the right direction in achieving this target. Nir, would you like to add something?
Nir Arbel: No, I think you covered the point, but I agree. I think this past 12, 18 months was very pivotal for AgPlenus’. And I think we have a lot of confidence in the platform and what we are doing, and we are expecting that we’ll see this manifest in 2024.
Benjamin Haynor: Okay, very helpful, thank you for that. And then you kind of segue into my next question. With the advancements that you’ve made in ChemPass AI and particularly TargetSelector, it sounds like that’s attracted interest, but can you share any more on potential positive developments that have come with the new application or new functionality like TargetSelector that have occurred here recently?
Amit Noam: So I think TargetSelector in particular attracts a lot of attention. I think that this it’s really addresses unmet need within the space, the way we operate. And I think that’s why this past period has been very crucial for AgPlenus’ is not only developing these tools, but having a proper validation process. And we see within that interest the need to see how we validate. And as we progress. We see more and more interest and better validation and confirming that the tools are good and that work as we expect. And therefore that’s why our confidence is very high in the platform itself and what the future focus on.
Benjamin Haynor: Okay, sounds so raises the confidence in the platform. And then lastly for me on the Crustacean Gene Editing collaboration, the announce does that have the potential to lead to another subsidiary? And then is that part of what you alluded to on your last call regarding some of the more food tech oriented things you had going on? Just a little bit more on the Crustacean gene would be helpful.
Ofer Haviv: So at first, yes, I remember that in previous call I was talking about potential activity of Evogene in the area of food test. But honestly I didn’t think about the Crustacean project when I was talking about it. There is some other activity that hopefully will materialize into agreement and we will share it with our investors. Hopefully maybe in the next quarter or so, but so there is more under the hood than what we disclose in this call. With respect to Crustacean project, I don’t see it developing into a new entity. You never know how big it could be. But at least in this point of time we don’t see it. Actually through this collaboration we are covering 100% from our cost, so we see even a little bit of revenue from this activity.
