News Archive
AGM Statement and Business Update
Sir Ben Gill, Chairman of Eden Research plc, is making the following Statement at the Company's AGM which is being held today in Wendens Ambo.
"Since last year's AGM, the company has continued to broaden its horizons by becoming an encapsulation technology development company in addition to being an agrochemical development company.
This is an exciting development for Eden which the directors believe will maximise the value of the company's intellectual property and, therefore, returns to shareholders.
I shall start, however, by updating our shareholders as to the progress of the products developed thus far by Eden.
Just after the 2010 AGM, Eden entered into a licence agreement with Stockton Agrimor, an Israeli based agrochemicals company, for Eden's nematicide product in the Southern and Central American regions. I can report that Stockton have undertaken a series of field trials, results of which should be available in the second half of 2011.
In June 2010, Eden entered into an exclusive option agreement with Certis Europe for Eden's nematode product. Since then, both Certis and Eden have undertaken field trials on a variety of nematode species in order to evaluate the potential for the products and to determine the markets for which Certis would like to enter into a full licensing agreement.
As previously announced, Eden is in advanced negotiations with a number of other potential partners for licensing the right to the nematodes product in the USA and Canada.
Eden's first product, 3AEY, a terpene based fungicide, has already been licensed to a number of parties for a variety of uses throughout the World. Its primary use is in professional crop applications, although the product has also been licensed for use in other sectors, such as amateur gardening and floriculture.
The three constituent active substances in 3AEY have all been subject to the EU registration process over a number of years and I would like to update you as follows.
The three active substance dossiers (information packages) were submitted to the UK regulatory body, the Chemicals Regulation Directorate ("CRD"), for their review.
Following CRD's review, all three of Eden's active substances dossiers were then submitted to the European Food Safety Authority ("EFSA") for their review, which process is now underway.
Once EFSA have completed their review process, the European Commission will vote on the inclusion of Eden's active substances onto Annex I. Annex I is the list of active substances approved for use by the European Commission in pesticidal products.
All three of Eden's active substances were submitted to EFSA with CRD's recommendation for Annex I inclusion.
Recently, the European Commission published that it has passed a resolution confirming the completeness of the dossiers for the three active substances submitted by Eden, under Directive 91/414/EEC.
Consequently, Eden has now started the process of submitting EU zonal applications for provisional approvals which will enable the sales of products using Eden's active substances and technologies.
The dossiers contain a significant amount of information which is useful for registration of the follow on products, such as the nematode product, which should significantly cut down the time required to register those products for use in the EU.
The dossiers have also been used by our partners, Lachlan Kenya, as part of their registration process for 3AEY in Kenya and we have been informed by them that the process is going well with Lachlan hoping to start manufacturing and selling product this year. This should lead to two important milestones for Eden; the first sales of 3AEY and first on-going royalty revenues.
The dossiers are also being used by our European licensee, Ecostyle BV, to develop and register products for use in the amateur gardening market.
Essentially, Eden is looking to complete the registration of 3AEY as soon as practicable and then, with the right partners, and using the vast information that we already have, register products with different applications, but based around the same three active substances.
We believe that this is the most expeditious route to commercialisation of products based upon work that has already been done and costs already incurred in development of our own products.
Separate to this, but still using the same encapsulation technology and the same business model, we have looked increasingly at how to further exploit the encapsulation technology, without the need for additional in-house product development.
To that end, in December 2010, Eden signed two agreements with SBM Développement SA ("SBM"), based in Lyon, which granted SBM the rights to use Eden's terpene encapsulation system. SBM are co- encapsulating two of their important crop protection molecules with blends of synergistic terpenes to create new products that will exhibit a wider spectrum of activity and be less prone to resistance development.
Since then, Eden has also received a number of new enquiries regarding the potential use of the encapsulation system in a wider range of applications and markets all of which are being actively pursued by Eden.
Just last week, Eden announced its second co-encapsulation agreement with Tagros Chemicals India PVT Limited, one of India's leading manufacturers and exporters of a range of agrochemicals. Using the encapsulation system will allow Tagros to create new products that will exhibit a wider spectrum of activity, longer persistence and be less prone to resistance development.
Outside of its primary agrochemical activities, Eden has a number of projects on-going which may well bring in significant future value on their own. An example includes our activities with Teva Animal Health ("Teva").
Teva, a subsidiary of the largest generic pharmaceutical company in the world, TEVA Pharmaceutical, was granted an exclusive option over rights to Eden's products and technologies in the animal health sector for the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) region in January 2010. Since then, TEVA has been busy undertaking trials using a large number of different combinations of terpene formulations to create a range of over- the- counter animal health products.
In addition, we are making good progress in other new application areas such as head-lice, skin and hair-care, domestic household applications, fragrances and food flavourings and hope to be able to make further announcements in these areas in due course.
In terms of our intellectual property, I am pleased to report that since the last AGM our nematode patent has been granted in two territories (Australia and African Regional Industrial Property Organization ("ARIPO") and our master encapsulation patent has also been granted in two further territories (New Zealand and Mexico), all of which serves as a useful indicator as to the validity and strength of our patent portfolio. Eden sees its patents as key to the success of the business and, as such, is keen to rigorously maintain and expand its portfolio.
As you will have gathered, Eden has experienced a considerable increase in commercial activity and industry interest in recent months. Much progress is being made to achieve important commercial milestones for Eden and all this will provide important additional elements to Eden's investment case as and when we move to listing on the AIM market, as was our declared intention at last year's AGM.
The next twelve months should see the first sales of Eden's product 3AEY, first on-going royalty revenues, milestone payments, additional product and co-encapsulation licence agreements, European approval of 3AEY and subsequently a move to the AIM market; all of which should make it an exciting year to come for Eden."
The Directors of Eden are responsible for the contents of this announcement.
Enquiries:
Eden Research plc
01993 862761
Clive Newitt, Managing Director
St Helens Capital Partners LLP
020 7368 6959
Mark Anwyl