Cibus Named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024
Agricultural biotechnology company joins the ranks of Nvidia, YouTube, Taco Bell, and more
SAN DIEGO, March 19, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cibus, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBUS), a leading agricultural biotechnology company that uses proprietary gene editing technologies to develop plant traits (or specific genetic characteristics) in seeds, today announced that it has been named to Fast Company’s prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024, ranking as the 2nd most innovative company in the agriculture category.
This year’s list shines a spotlight on businesses that are shaping industry and culture through their innovations. These organizations are setting new standards and achieving remarkable milestones in all sectors of the economy. Alongside the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, Fast Company recognizes 606 organizations across 58 sectors and regions.
“We are extremely proud to be recognized by Fast Company as one of the world’s most innovative companies of 2024,” stated Rory Riggs, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Cibus. “Innovation is truly at the heart of what we do. We are at the center of a technology revolution in agriculture and this recognition is a testament to our leadership in helping transform the agricultural gene editing industry in its analog to digital moment in advancing breeding. Our vision is to create a commercial stage gene editing company that is industrially scaled to process and deliver multiple traits for multiple seed company customers across multiple crop types. This vision, enabled by our proprietary gene editing platform – the Rapid Trait Development System™ or RTDS – and continued regulatory progress, is a significant step toward addressing the major challenges in building a sustainable food supply on a global scale. Gene editing is a major climate technology due to its focus on reducing chemical use and developing sustainable plant-based products to replace industrial ingredients whose sources are environmentally challenging such as fossil fuels and palm oils.”
Cibus has celebrated several key milestones over the last 12 months. In the second quarter of 2023, Cibus merged with Calyxt to form present day Cibus, bringing together two pioneers in the agricultural gene editing business. In the third quarter of 2023, Cibus opened its Oberlin facility in San Diego, which it believes represents the industry’s first timebound, reproducible, and predictable science-based next generation breeding process. This facility supports the scaling and commercialization of Cibus’ growing RTDS crop and trait pipeline.
In 2023, Cibus transformed from its R&D origins to focus on the implementation of its commercial strategy – the commercialization of its three developed traits – Pod Shatter Reduction (PSR) in Canola, and its two herbicide tolerance traits in Rice (HT1 and HT3). In 2023 the Company successfully completed its first transfers of PSR in Canola and HT1 and HT3 in Rice to seed company customers. The Company also signed collaboration agreements for trait development with many major seed companies and achieved successful 2023 field trial results for its developed productivity traits.
Cibus also continues to make progress with its two advanced traits – Sclerotinia resistance and HT2 in Canola and Winter Oilseed Rape and extending its proprietary RTDS platform to the world’s major crops. In early 2024, Cibus announced a major breakthrough with the world’s first successful regeneration of Wheat plants from single cells. This demonstrated the Company’s continued success in developing scalable high-throughput breeding platforms that can operate as extensions of seed company breeding programs. Cibus also continues to progress its Soybean platform, which underpins the development of its emerging sustainable ingredients business.
The World’s Most Innovative Companies stands as Fast Company’s hallmark franchise and one of its most anticipated editorial efforts of the year.
Fast Company’s editors and writers identified the companies driving progress around the world and across industries, evaluating thousands of submissions through a competitive application process. The result is a globe-spanning guide to innovation today, from early-stage startups to some of the most valuable companies in the world. Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies package is available online, as well as in-app form via iTunes, and on newsstands beginning March 26. The hashtag is #FCMostInnovative.
“Our list of the Most Innovative Companies is both a comprehensive look at the innovation economy and a snapshot of the business trends that defined the year,” said Fast Company editor-in-chief Brendan Vaughan. “We saw extraordinary innovation across the board in 2023, but we also saw a handful of clear patterns: the growing footprint and impact of AI, the triumphant return of live events, and great leaps forward in climate tech. We face daunting challenges on many fronts, but the solutions we celebrate in MIC give me plenty of hope about the future.”
Fast Company will host the Most Innovative Companies Summit and Gala on May 16. The summit features a morning and afternoon of inspiring content, followed by a creative black-tie gala including networking, a seated dinner, and an honoree presentation. This event celebrates the Most Innovative Companies honorees and provides an inside look at cutting-edge business trends and what it takes to innovate in 2024.
About the Cibus Trait Machine™ process and Rapid Trait Development System™
A key element of Cibus’ technology breakthrough is its high-throughput breeding process (referred to as the Trait Machine™ process). The Trait Machine process is a crop specific application of Cibus’ patented Rapid Trait Development System™ (RTDS®). The proprietary technologies in RTDS integrate crop specific cell biology platforms with a series of gene editing technologies to enable a system of end-to-end crop specific precision breeding. It is the core technology platform for Cibus’ Trait Machine process: the first standardized end-to-end semi-automated crop specific gene editing system that directly edits a seed company’s elite germplasm. Each Trait Machine process requires a crop specific cell biology platform that enables Cibus to edit a single cell from a customer’s elite germplasm and grow that edited cell into a plant with the Cibus edits. Cibus has a Trait Machine process developed for canola and rice and has already begun transferring their elite germplasm with Cibus edits back to customers.
The traits from Cibus’ RTDS-based high-throughput breeding system are indistinguishable from traits developed using conventional breeding or from nature. RTDS does not use any foreign DNA or transgenes. Under the European Commission’s current proposals, it is expected that products from Cibus’ RTDS gene editing platform such as its Pod Shatter Reduction trait and Sclerotinia resistance traits for Canola and Winter Oilseed Rape would be considered ‘Conventional-like’.
Cibus believes that RTDS and the Trait Machine process represent the technological breakthrough in plant breeding that is the ultimate promise of plant gene editing: “high- throughput gene editing systems operating as an extension of seed company breeding programs.”
Because the Trait Machine process is intended to be integrated into seed companies’ breeding operations, the customer relationship between Cibus and seed companies with which it engages is a progressive relationship. Typically, the customer relationship is initiated with Cibus through the entry into a material transfer agreement pursuant to which seed companies transfer elite germplasm lines to Cibus for gene editing and delivery back to the seed company for pre-commercialization testing and validation. Accordingly, Cibus refers to seed company “customers” in its disclosure once such a customer relationship has been initiated. At present, all of the Company’s customers discussed in this press release are at this initial stage of a relationship. While this initial stage of such customer relationships is a necessary prerequisite to the entry into a revenue generating commercial contract with such seed companies, currently, Cibus has certain customer relationships which include commercial contract terms, as well as others that are in various stages of development, including some in trait evaluation and/or field testing, however these have not yet generated revenue.
About Cibus
Cibus is a leader in Gene Edited Productivity traits that address critical productivity and sustainability challenges for farmers such as diseases and pests which the United Nations estimates cost the global economy approximately $300 billion annually. Cibus is not a seed company. It is a technology company that uses gene editing to develop and license traits to seed companies in exchange for royalties on seed sales. Cibus’ focus is productivity traits for the major global crops such as canola, rice, soybean, and wheat. Cibus is a technology leader in high throughput gene editing technology that enables Cibus to develop and commercialize plant traits at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional breeding. Using its Trait Machine Process, Cibus has developed a pipeline of five productivity traits including important traits for pod shatter reduction, Sclerotinia resistance and weed management. Its initial traits for pod shatter reduction and weed management are developed in collaborations with leading seed companies. Its other pipeline traits including Sclerotinia resistance are in advanced greenhouse and field trial stages.
About Fast Company
Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.
Cibus Contacts:
Investor Relations
Karen Troeber
ktroeber@cibus.com
858-450-2636
Jeff Sonnek – ICR
jeff.sonnek@icrinc.com
Media Relations
Colin Sanford
colin@bioscribe.com
203-918-4347
