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Source: PRESS RELEASE, 3/26/13
DuPont and Monsanto announced today a series of technology licensing agreements that will
expand the range of seed products they can offer farmers. The agreements
include a multi-year, royalty-bearing license for Monsanto’s next-generation
soybean technologies in the United States and Canada.
Through these agreements, DuPont Pioneer will be able to
offer Genuity® Roundup Ready 2 Yield® soybeans as early as 2014, and Genuity® Roundup
Ready 2 Xtend™ glyphosate and dicamba tolerant soybeans as early as 2015,
pending regulatory approvals.
DuPont Pioneer also will receive regulatory data rights for
the soybean and corn traits previously licensed from Monsanto, enabling it to
create a wide array of stacked trait combinations using traits or genetics from
DuPont Pioneer or others. Monsanto will receive access to certain DuPont
Pioneer disease resistance and corn defoliation patents.
“This technology exchange helps both companies to expand the
range of innovative solutions we can offer farmers, and to do so faster than
either of us could alone,” said DuPont Pioneer President Paul E. Schickler.
“The agreements broaden the Pioneer soybean line-up. Importantly, they give us
greater flexibility in developing combinations of genetics and traits to help
feed an increasingly crowded planet.”
Schickler reaffirmed DuPont’s existing financial growth
commitments for its Agriculture segment.
“We’ve always agreed that technological innovation and
farmer choice are essential to agriculture, and this agreement endorses the
value of our next-generation soybean technologies,” said Brett Begemann,
Monsanto president and chief commercial officer. “This signals a new approach
to our companies doing business together, allowing two of the leaders in the
industry to focus on bringing farmers the best products possible while working
to advance innovation and long-term opportunity for agriculture.”
Under these agreements, DuPont Pioneer will make a series of
upfront and variable based royalty payments subject to future delivery of
enabling soybean genetic material. It will make four annual fixed royalty
payments from 2014 to 2017 totaling $802 million for trait technology,
associated data, and soybean lines to support commercial introduction.
Additionally, beginning in 2018, DuPont Pioneer will pay royalties on a per
unit basis of Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield® and Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Xtend™
for the life of the agreement for continued technology access, subject to
annual minimum payments through 2023 totaling $950 million. DuPont is filing a
2 Form 8-K containing additional information about the impact
of these agreements on the company. A copy of the 8-K is available on the
DuPont Investor Center at www.investors.dupont.com.
DuPont and Monsanto also agreed to dismiss their respective
antitrust and first-generation Roundup Ready® soybean patent lawsuits pending
in U.S. federal court in St. Louis.
Additional terms of the agreements were not disclosed.
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