BASF Plant Science acquires Belgian biotechnology company CropDesign

18/05/06 BASF, The Chemical Company, and a global leader in agricultural products and fine chemicals has announced the acquisition of CropDesign. The Belgian biotech enterprise will become part of BASF Plant Science, BASF´s plant biotechnology company. Both parties have agreed not to disclose financial details. BASF´s plant biotechnology company now leading in agronomically important traits to develop higher yielding crops such as corn, soy bean and rape seed.

BASF is convinced that crops with higher yields will become increasingly important to meet the nutritional needs of a growing global population. “In 15 years we will have close to eight billion people on our planet, almost 1.5 billion more than today. With lead times of 12 to 15 years in research we have no time to lose,” states BASF Board Member Peter Oakley.

In addition, the increasing use of crops as renewable resources such as biofuels or biopolymers will also strain supplies due to the limited availability of suitable land for agriculture.

“CropDesign´s excellent portfolio of important agronomical traits will significantly strengthen our product pipeline of higher yielding crops,” comments Hans Kast, president and CEO of BASF Plant Science. “The screening capacities of CropDesign and the BASF Plant Science company Metanomics in Berlin offer us both a worldwide unique combination of screening parameters and an extremely high throughput of genes to be tested. This secure us a strong and sustainable competitive advantage to continuously develop our position among the market leaders in plant biotechnology.”

“Becoming a part of BASF’s plant biotechnology platform clearly validates the competitive edge of our discovery capabilities and the quality of our trait portfolio,” adds Johan Cardoen, CEO of CropDesign.

CropDesign´s genetic traits based on rice further strengthens BASF Plant Science’s unique gene-discovery research. This research is based on the metabolic profiling technology at Metanomics. Here, scientists identify the metabolic functions of every plant gene, which allows the development of plants with desired characteristics. The database contains metabolic profiles associated with approximately 30,000 plant genes - knowledge that is already unique to BASF in plant biotech industry.

In December 2005, BASF Plant Science and CropDesign already signed a broad licence and research agreement. The acquisition now secures BASF Plant Science full access to additional traits and to all research and development options of the company that were not yet covered.