EVGN News & Events

Evogene and the Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery, BCDD, at Tel Aviv University announced a strategic joint initiative aimed at accelerating the growth, development, and success of innovation originating from Israel's academic research ecosystem and focused on small-molecule drug discovery. This collaboration agreement was facilitated by Ramot, Tel Aviv University's tech transfer company. The initiative is designed to support scientific entrepreneurs and research teams that possess deep biological understanding of novel disease targets but often face significant challenges in translating these discoveries into viable drug development programs.

Evogene (EVGN) announced the successful completion of a significant milestone in its second collaboration with Google (GOOG) Cloud. This milestone marks the integration of agentic computational systems within Evogene's ChemPass AI platform, designed to rapidly and efficiently identify key success requirements at the earliest stages of small-molecule development. These new capabilities are expected to enable the selection of molecules that meet product definition requirements at the early stages of the discovery phase, with the goal of accelerating discovery timelines, improving scalability and most importantly, significantly enhancing the overall probability of success. Successful small-molecule development requires identifying candidates that satisfy a broad and complex set of biological, chemical, clinical and commercial requirements. To address these challenges, the enhanced ChemPass AI engine, enabled by Google's Gemini models and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, is designed to enable earlier and deeper biological TPP profiling, with the goal of identifying the critical criteria a molecule must satisfy to progress successfully. This capability is driven by a workflow of autonomous AI agents that integrate structural, biological, chemical and clinical data to independently profile these targets.

Evogene announced the successful completion of the first-in-human Phase 1 clinical study of BMC128, a rationally-designed live bacterial product developed by its subsidiary, Biomica Ltd., in combination with Nivolumab in patients with advanced solid tumors, including melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, and non-small cell lung cancer. The open-label, single-arm Phase 1 study enrolled 11 patients, with advanced solid tumors who had previously progressed following anti-PD-1 immunotherapy and was designed to evaluate the safety and tolerability of BMC128 in combination with Nivolumab. The treatment regimen included a two-week induction phase with BMC128 monotherapy, followed by 16 weeks of combination treatment with BMC128 and Nivolumab. Patients demonstrating clinical benefit were eligible to continue Nivolumab monotherapy for up to two years or until disease progression. The study successfully met its primary endpoint, demonstrating favorable safety and tolerability, with no dose-limiting toxicities observed. Preliminary clinical findings demonstrated early signs of anti-tumor activity. Five of the eleven treated patients achieved stable disease beyond the 16-week combination treatment period. Two patients remained on study through the full two-year follow-up period during Nivolumab maintenance therapy, while one patient achieved a partial response. In addition to clinical observations, translational analyses demonstrated biological signals consistent with the proposed mechanism of action of BMC128. Responding patients showed increased microbiome diversity, evidence of immune activation, and modulation of immune suppression-associated signatures.