DevGen
| Acquired by Syngenta in 2013 | |
| Industry | Agriculture and biotech |
| Founded | Gent, Belgium (1997) |
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Key people
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Thierry Bogaert, Founder, CEO Remi Vermeiren, Chairman Wim Goemaere, CFO |
| Products | Pesticides, crop seeds, agricultural biotechnology |
| Website | http://www.syngenta.com |
Devgen is a Belgium-based multinational agricultural biotechnology company. It uses biotechnology and molecular breeding technologies to develop varieties of food crops. Its technology is marketed by outlicensing or selling seeds in India and South-East Asia. Devgen also develops nematicides.
Devgen was founded as a spin-off of Ghent University and The Flemish Institute for Biotechnology in 1997 to commercialize intellectual property it licensed on the use of RNAi in nematodes and its use for screening for therapeutics and/or their targets. Its work focused on the nematode C. elegans as a model system, which functions as a model for human diseases, but also as a model for the kind of nematodes that are agricultural pests.
The company raised 37 million Euro in its first three years, first from the GIMV and Abingworth investment companies at its launch, then from the IWT, then from another round of private investors including ING, KBC, Life Science Partners, Sofindex, Rendex and Mercator, then from Polytechnos and Capricorn. The received several subsequent grants from IWT.
Devgen also struck R&D collaborations over its first six years, first with Janssen Pharmaceutica in 1998 in the field of target discovery for drugs and later with Merck and Genentech in the same field, and in 1998 it collaborated with FMC Corporation for the discovery of novel insecticides, and then with other ag companies like Sumitomo, Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred. Devgen brought in 23 million Euro in funding from these partnerships through 2003.
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Wikipedia