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Pairwise today announced the early completion of its development milestones in its collaboration with Bayer. Opened in 2018, Pairwise believes healthy food should be affordable, convenient and sustainable. This mission comes to life in its partnership with Bayer through the creation of new varieties that allow farmers to use fewer resources and to be more productive.

As part of its product development efforts, Pairwise is collaborating with Bayer to use gene editing to solve key challenges in five major row crops – corn, soybeans, wheat, canola and cotton. As part of the collaboration, milestones were established to ensure timely development of a state-of-the-art gene editing commercial pipeline at Pairwise.

“By accomplishing these milestones 16 months ahead of schedule, Pairwise has significantly accelerated our growing product pipeline,” said Dr. Tom Adams, CEO of Pairwise. “We have established a robust trait pipeline with the capacity to initiate nearly 400 unique constructs per year aimed at important commercial targets.”

The high throughput and high efficiency editing capability, including base editing, enables Pairwise to develop new products through the testing of a wide range of novel alleles across multiple crops, genes, and traits.

“We are pleased with the rapid progress Pairwise has made in developing robust gene editing capabilities” said Jeremy Williams, Senior Vice President and Head of Plant Biotechnology at Bayer.

Progress will enable new product development

Progress made on applying gene editing techniques to row crops within the Bayer-Pairwise collaboration will enable future product development when those tools are translated to fruits and vegetables.

“These capabilities put our teams in position to deliver breakthrough innovation in consumer-focused crops, which will translate into product benefits that will delight consumers,” said Pairwise’s Adams. “The breadth of the gene editing that we have developed unlocks tremendous potential to explore a variety of traits that will bring exciting changes to the produce aisle.”

Pairwise today announced it has selected Durham, N.C., as its headquarters and will lease space on the Golden Belt Campus in the heart of downtown. The move represents a commitment to growth in a region ripe with innovation and engagement in the agricultural technology industry.

“Pairwise is focused on improving produce and row crops to address consumer needs for affordable, healthy, convenient and sustainable food,” said Pairwise CEO Dr. Tom Adams. “Our facilities in Durham, the talent we have recruited, and the close proximity to like-minded life science businesses and organizations will help us make this vision a reality. Establishing our headquarters in Durham will allow us to focus on research and development, as well as growing our business and becoming an active member in the local community.”

“North Carolina is home to a diverse agriculture base that includes not only a wide range of crops, but emerging technologies in life sciences from agriculture to pharmaceuticals,” said Pairwise Chief Business Officer Haven Baker. “Durham itself is home to a mix of education, science and art which makes it a great place to build a company. We’re excited to establish our presence in a city, and state, that thrives on its diversity of growth opportunities.”

The company was founded by Adams, Baker and leading academics J. Keith Joung, David Liu and Feng Zhang to leverage the natural diversity in agricultural crops in new ways to address global food and health challenges. The company is developing new genomic technologies it intends to make available to a wide array of food and agriculture companies spanning row and specialty crops, fruits and vegetables. Since announcing the company’s formation in March 2018, its leadership has expanded to include:

• Ryan Rapp, Head of Product Discovery
• Aaron Hummel, Head of Genome Editing Technology
• Mike Mann, Head of Trait Development Pipeline
• Ian Miller, Vice President of Business Operations
• Heather Hudson, Head of Collaborations and Portfolio Management
• Jason Goode, Director of Business Development
• Amy Lewis, Head of Human Resources

The company currently has approximately 50 employees, and anticipates hiring an additional 30-40 employees throughout 2018 and 2019.

Pairwise has already engaged with The North Carolina Biotechnology Center as an important resource for establishing a collaborative network in the region.

The Golden Belt Campus is a 320,000 square-foot historic mill that once facilitated textile and tobacco operations and is the only remaining 1900s-era conversion opportunity of its kind in the area. With a 36,000-square-foot space in the newly renovated multi-building, mixed-use Golden Belt Campus, Pairwise will complement its presence in the Research Triangle Park (RTP) where it currently has 24,000 square feet of greenhouse and an additional 30,000 square feet of space for additional research and development.

In the spring of 2019, the research and development team and executives will move to the location downtown, while additional team members will remain in RTP at the plant growth and testing facilities.

“Pairwise is a forward-thinking company and an ideal tenant for the Golden Belt Campus,” said Ed Kulik, the co-owner of LRC Properties which is a managing member of Golden Belt Campus. “We are excited to see how this new office and lab location will enable their company to further expand their research and continue to make breakthroughs in healthy and sustainable food production.”

NAI Carolantic Realty brokers Robin Roseberry Anders, SIOR, and Jordan Williams, MBA, represent the Golden Belt Campus. Pairwise was represented by Don Shupe and Heath Chapman of CBRE in the lease negotiation.

About Pairwise

Driven by the belief that food should be healthy, affordable, convenient and sustainable, Pairwise brings together leaders in agriculture and technology to harness the transformative potential of new genomics technologies to address our food system’s needs. We are working to develop new varieties of crops, and to partner with food and agriculture companies who seek to put nutritious food on tables across the globe. From developing novel genome editing tools to leveraging the natural genetic diversity of plants and creating robust partnerships and collaborations, we are addressing the biggest challenges facing the future of food. Join us.

About Golden Belt

Represented by NAI Carolantic Realty brokers Robin Roseberry Anders, SIOR, and Jordan Williams, MBA, Golden Belt Campus is a 320,000 SF historic mill that once facilitated textile and tobacco operations and is the only remaining 1900s era conversion opportunity of its kind in the area. LRC Properties purchased the Mill No.1 portion of the campus in 2016, and the remainder of the Golden Belt buildings in mid-2017, beginning a full-scale renovation of the former that summer. In addition to fully renovated brick and timber office spaces boasting large 40K SF floor plates, the renovation will include new artist’s studios and galleries, landscaped outdoor areas for tenant and neighborhood gatherings, and a music stage on the “Summer Stage Plaza” bordering Taylor Street.

About LRC Properties

LRC Properties is an experienced investment manager focused on East Coast commercial real estate investments. Founded in 2009 by Howard Lavitt and Edward Kulik, LRC Properties is headquartered in New York with an experienced team capable of dealing with all aspects of real estate management. In North Carolina, LRC Properties has assets in Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh, with an office in Charlotte. LRC concentrates in acquiring core plus and value add properties in improving markets, and currently manages more than 8 million square feet in the Southeast. LRC is positioned to move quickly to deploy capital and decisively secure transactions. For more information on LRC Properties, visit www.lrcprop.com.

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Pairwise Plants (Pairwise) today announced it has closed a $25M Series A financing co-led by Deerfield Management and Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV), the venture capital arm of Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON).

Pairwise is an agricultural company focused on using gene editing and leveraging natural diversity in agricultural crops in new ways to address global food challenges. The company will be led by Dr. Tom Adams, chief executive officer (CEO), and Dr. Haven Baker, chief business officer, with founders Drs. Feng Zhang, David Liu and J. Keith Joung, each a preeminent expert and inventor of gene-editing technologies.

Together this team brings unparalleled expertise to Pairwise. “My co-founders and I believe the technologies we have each been developing can have a profound impact in plant agriculture and will speed innovation that is badly needed to feed a growing population amid challenging conditions created by a changing climate,” said Pairwise founder J. Keith Joung.

Pairwise has licensed programmable base editing technology from Harvard University and will be developing new gene-editing applications that Pairwise intends to make available to a wide array of food and agriculture companies spanning row and specialty crops, fruits and vegetables.

“Our world needs healthier, more affordable, more convenient and more sustainable food,” said Dr. Tom Adams, incoming Pairwise CEO. “Our goal is to solve agriculture problems across a wide range of food systems that are also acknowledged social problems – including food waste, food security and nutrition, and to enable other companies worldwide to benefit from gene editing through technology licensing and collaboration.”

The industry-leading work of the Pairwise founders, and the unique ability of these experts to work together toward the goal of advancing innovation in agriculture, appealed to investors.

“Deerfield has experience in gene-editing technology for human health and we see Pairwise as an opportunity to engage leading scientists in gene editing to create a truly unique company that will benefit agriculture and society,” said Cam Wheeler, Principal at Deerfield Management.

MGV is one of the most active investors in agriculture. “Part of Monsanto’s commitment to modern agriculture is recognizing and accelerating innovation by investing in best-in-class startup companies,” said Kiersten Stead, investment director for MGV. “We are excited to establish a new independent company that will create innovative new products to benefit consumers, farmers and the environment – both in grains and underbred crops.”

About the Pairwise Founders

• David Liu is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, faculty member at the Broad Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. At Harvard, Liu pioneered base editing, a new form of gene editing, and evolved genome editing agents with improved properties compared to their natural forms.
• J. Keith Joung is the Desmond and Ann Heathwood Research Scholar and a pathologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Over the past decade, his lab has invented and optimized important innovations in gene-editing technology.
• Feng Zhang is a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, as well as the James and Patricia Poitras Professor in Neuroscience at MIT, in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Zhang developed the CRISPR-Cas9 system for gene editing in eukaryotic cells and continues to identify and adapt gene-editing tools including CRISPR-Cas12s (Cpf1) and CRISPR-Cas13s.
• Tom Adams, former vice president of biotechnology at Monsanto, will be joining the company on April 1 as CEO. Adams brings more than 30 years of genomics and biotechnology research experience, including 20 years at Monsanto where he most recently led the company’s Biotechnology organization.
• Haven Baker will assume the role of Chief Business Officer. Baker, formerly senior vice president and general manager of Simplot Plant Sciences, was responsible for launching the Innate Potato.

About Pairwise

Driven by the belief that food should be healthy, affordable, convenient and sustainable, Pairwise brings together leaders in agriculture and technology to harness the transformative potential of genome editing to address our food system’s needs. We are working to develop new varieties of crops, and to partner with food and agriculture companies who seek to put nutritious food on tables across the globe. From developing novel genome editing tools to leveraging the natural genetic diversity of plants and creating robust partnerships and collaborations, we are working to address the biggest challenges facing the future of food. Join us. For more information, please visit www.pairwiseplants.com.

About Deerfield Management

Deerfield is a healthcare investment firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information and philanthropy. For more information, please visit www.deerfield.com.

About Monsanto Growth Ventures

Monsanto Growth Ventures, the venture capital arm of Monsanto Company, is growth-stage agnostic and will invest in companies from Seed stage, through Series A and beyond. Its robust program for partnering with early-stage companies leads to stronger partnerships, collaborations that accelerate development and, sometimes, according to strategic goals, mergers and acquisitions. As one of more than a dozen companies in the MGV portfolio, the investment in Pairwise complements Monsanto’s approach to integrating plant breeding, plant biotechnology, crop protection, ag biologicals and data science platforms to give growers better tools and technologies for producing better harvests, protecting crops and conserving resources in the face of mounting environmental challenges such as climate change and water scarcity. For more information on Monsanto Growth Ventures, visit https://monsanto.com/company/monsanto-growth-ventures/.

Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) and Pairwise Plants (Pairwise), an agricultural startup, have announced a collaboration to advance agriculture research and development by leveraging gene-editing technology. Under the agreement, Pairwise will work in corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and canola crops exclusively with Monsanto. The companies bring unparalleled expertise and complementary intellectual property (IP) to a strategic alliance expected to drive new and needed solutions to help farmers produce better harvests, protect crops from evolving threats, and conserve resources in the face of mounting environmental challenges.

Under the companies’ collaboration and licensing agreement, Monsanto would contribute $100 million to access and develop Pairwise IP in row crop applications, including an option to commercialize products resulting from the research collaboration.

“Part of Monsanto’s commitment to delivering new technologies to farmers is recognizing other innovators we can work with to accelerate solutions,” said Dr. Robb Fraley, Monsanto chief technology officer. “We are excited to be collaborating with the pioneers in gene editing at Pairwise to build on the robust body of research driven by our in-house team.”

Pairwise is focused on finding new ways to address global food challenges through a world-class collective of gene-editing and agriculture thought leaders, along with access to foundational gene-editing IP. Pairwise has licensed programmable base editing technology from Harvard University and will be developing new gene-editing applications that Pairwise and Monsanto will apply in their research. Pairwise also plans to develop its own new crop varieties while collaborating with other agriculture and consumer food companies.

“My co-founders and I believe the technologies we have each been developing can have a profound impact in plant agriculture and will speed innovation that is badly needed to feed a growing population amid challenging conditions created by a changing climate,” said Pairwise founder J. Keith Joung. “Base editing technology has the potential to have an enormous impact on the speed and precision with which plant scientists can improve crops, giving researchers the ability to make single nucleotide changes at a precise location in the genome efficiently.”

Pairwise recently closed a $25 million Series A financing co-led by premier venture capital firm Deerfield Management and Monsanto Growth Ventures, the venture capital arm of Monsanto, which are each minority shareholders. The company will be led by Dr. Tom Adams, incoming chief executive officer, and Dr. Haven Baker, chief business officer, with founders Drs. David Liu (professor and researcher at Harvard University and the Broad Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator), Feng Zhang (Broad Institute/MIT) and J. Keith Joung (Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School), each a preeminent expert and inventor of gene-editing technologies.

“Human health care has long pioneered gene-related treatments, successfully advancing responses to our most systemic disease challenges. Pairwise and our partners believe the same is possible for agriculture,” said Dr. Baker, Pairwise chief business officer. “Gene editing can play a critical role in addressing global food challenges through collaboration across companies worldwide.”

For more information on Pairwise, visit www.pairwiseplants.com.

About Monsanto Company

Monsanto is committed to bringing a broad range of solutions to help nourish our growing world. We produce seeds for fruits, vegetables and key crops – such as corn, soybeans, and cotton – that help farmers have better harvests while using water and other important resources more efficiently. We work to find sustainable solutions for soil health, help farmers use data to improve farming practices and conserve natural resources, and provide crop protection products to minimize damage from pests and disease. Through programs and partnerships, we collaborate with farmers, researchers, nonprofit organizations, universities and others to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. To learn more about Monsanto, our commitments and our more than 20,000 dedicated employees, please visit Monsanto.com. Follow our business on Twitter^® at twitter.com/MonsantoCo.

About Pairwise

Driven by the belief that food should be healthy, affordable, convenient and sustainable, Pairwise brings together leaders in agriculture and technology to harness the transformative potential of genome editing to address our food system’s needs. We are working to develop new varieties of crops, and to partner with food and agriculture companies who seek to put nutritious food on tables across the globe. From developing novel genome editing tools to leveraging the natural genetic diversity of plants and creating robust partnerships and collaborations, we are working to address the biggest challenges facing the future of food. Join us.

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information:
Certain statements contained in this release are “forward-looking statements,” such as statements concerning the company’s anticipated financial results, current and future product performance, regulatory approvals, business and financial plans and other non-historical facts, as well as the pending transaction with Bayer Aktiengesellschaft (“Bayer”). These statements are based on current expectations and currently available information. However, since these statements are based on factors that involve risks and uncertainties, the company’s actual performance and results may differ materially from those described or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, among others: risks related to the pending transaction between the company and Bayer, including the risk that the regulatory approvals required for the transaction may not be obtained on the anticipated terms or time frame or at all, the risk that the other conditions to the completion of the transaction may not be satisfied, the risk that disruptions or uncertainties related to the pending transaction could adversely affect the company’s business, financial performance and/or relationships with third parties, and the risk that certain contractual restrictions during the pendency of the transaction could adversely affect the company’s ability to pursue business opportunities or strategic transactions; continued competition in seeds, traits and agricultural chemicals; the company’s exposure to various contingencies, including those related to intellectual property protection, regulatory compliance and the speed with which approvals are received, and public understanding and acceptance of our biotechnology and other agricultural products; the success of the company’s research and development activities; the outcomes of major lawsuits, including potential litigation related to the pending transaction with Bayer; developments related to foreign currencies and economies; fluctuations in commodity prices; compliance with regulations affecting our manufacturing; the accuracy of the company’s estimates related to distribution inventory levels; the levels of indebtedness, continued availability of capital and financing and rating agency actions; the company’s ability to fund its short-term financing needs and to obtain payment for the products that it sells; the effect of weather conditions, natural disasters, accidents, and security breaches, including cybersecurity incidents, on the agriculture business or the company’s facilities; and other risks and factors detailed in the company’s most recent periodic report to the SEC. Undue reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which are current only as of the date of this release. The company disclaims any current intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements or any of the factors that may affect actual results.