Welcome to Evogene's Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. All participants are present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, we will open the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded March 6, 2025. Before we begin, I would like to caution that certain statements made during this earnings conference call by Evogene’s management, will constitute forward-looking statements that relate to future events. This presentation contains forward-looking statements relating to future events and Evogene LTD, the Company, may, from time to time, make other statements regarding our outlook or expectations for future financial or operating results and/or other matters regarding or affecting us that are considered forward-looking statements as defined in the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other securities laws as amended statements that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of such words as believe, expect, anticipate, should, planned, estimated, intend and potential or words of similar meaning. We are using forward-looking statements in this presentation when we discuss our value drivers, commercialization and production efforts and timing product development and launches estimated market sizes and milestones, pipelines as well as our capabilities and technology. Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions described opinions about future events, involve certain risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict, and are not guarantees of future performance. Readers are cautioned that certain important factors may affect the company's actual results and could cause such results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements that may be made in this presentation. Therefore, actual future results, performance or achievements and trends in the future may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements due to a…

Good day, everyone. In today's conference call, I would like to begin by welcoming Nir Nimrodi as Evogene’s new Chairman of the Board. I will continue with a review of the financial and business highlights for the fourth quarter and the entire year 2024 followed by an overview of Evogene’s current activities. I will then conclude with our subsidiaries targets for 2025. After my remarks, Yaron Eldad, Evogene’s CFO will provide financial update on Q4 and the entire year 2024. We will then open a Q&A session. Today, Evogene formally announced a change in the Chair position in which Nir Nimrodi who served as a Board Member for the past two-and-a-half years will now serve as an acting Chairperson replacing Sarit Firon who will now act as a Board Member. I warmly welcome Nir Nimrodi as Evogene’s new Chairman of the Board and I'm looking forward to closely working alongside him. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sarit Firon for guiding Evogene’s board and management over the last three and a half years and I am looking forward to her continued support of the company as a Board Member. Nir Nimrodi is here with us, and I ask him to say some introductory words

Thank you, Ofer. I'm honored to assume the role of Chairman and would like to thank Sarit for her valuable contributions. I'm happy she will continue in her capacity as a Board Member. I'm really excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for Evogene. We believe that the company holds several assets and subsidiaries with potential to generate significant value for both Evogene and its shareholders. I would like to emphasize this last remark again. We are committed to unlocking this value within this year and anticipate achieving it a capital-efficient manner. Eveogene has been at the forefront of leveraging advanced computational capabilities to drive product innovation for the past two decades. With the growing potential of AI, we plan to further expand our expertise to accelerate the drug discovery process and maximize the value we bring to this field. Lastly, I've spent the last 25 years in the life science space and was instrumental in generating significant shareholder value in both public and private companies. I am eager to get started to do the same with Evogene’s team.

Thank you, Nir and I wish us great success. I would now like to focus on the financial and business highlights of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. In the year 2024, total revenues reached approximately $8.5 million, compared to approximately $5.6 million in the year 2023. The increase in revenues in 2024 is mainly due to an increase in AgPlenus revenues from its collaboration with Bayer and an increase in Casterra’s seed sales. In Q4 of 2024, total revenues reached approximately $1.6 million, compared to $0.6 million in Q4 2023. The increase in revenues in Q4 2024 is mainly due to the increase in Casterra’s seed sales. The main reason for the lower revenue in Q4 2024 compared to expectations is the change in the delivery schedule of Casterra’s seeds from 2024 to 2025. In the entire Q4 2024, Casterra delivered only 76 tons, while in February 2025 alone, the company already delivered 250 tons of castor seeds. In entire 2024, Casterra delivered approximately 215 tons of castor seeds in total, while as that’s expected just in February this year, company delivered already 250 tons, which reflects solving the bottleneck in seed productions company previously faced, that caused a delay in the delivery schedule and consequent price adjustments. Casterra is expected to continue delivering castor seeds mainly from its existing inventory which currently consists of 400 tons to its partners throughout 2025, based on a new schedule and new orders to be received some replacing previous 2023 orders following discussion with our partners. In the year 2024, total R&D expenses were approximately $16.6 million, compared to $20.8 million in year 2023. In Q4 of 2024, total R&D expenses were approximately $3.4 million, compared to $5.5 million in Q4 2023. These decreases are mainly due to the end of Canonic’s…

As of December 31, 2024, Evogene had consolidated cash, cash equivalents and short-term bank deposits of approximately $15.3 million. The consolidated cash usage during the fourth quarter of 2024 was approximately $4.6 million. Excluding Lavie Bio and Biomica, Evogene and its other subsidiaries used approximately $1.5 million in cash during the fourth quarter of 2024. Cash usage for 2024, excluding Lavie Bio and Biomica was approximately $10.4 million, marking a notable 17% decrease from approximately $12.5 million in 2023. Revenues for the twelve months of 2024 were approximately $8.5 million, an increase from approximately $5.6 million in the same period the previous year. This growth was primarily driven by revenues recognized from AgPlenus’ new collaboration with Bayer and increased Casterra’s revenues for the supply of castor seeds during the period. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2024 were approximately $1.6 million, compared to approximately $0.6 million in the same period the previous year. The increase was mainly attributable to the increase in Casterra’s seed sales and the collaboration with Bayer, as mentioned above. Research and development expenses net of non-refundable grants for the twelve months of 2024 were approximately $16.6 million, a significant decrease from approximately $20.8 million in the twelve months of 2023. The decrease in expenses is mainly due to the cease of Canonic’s activities and a decrease in certain development expenses in Biomica, Evogene and Lavie Bio, as compared to the same period the previous year. Research and development expenses, net of non-refundable grants for the fourth quarter of 2024 were approximately $3.4 million and decreased as compared to approximately $5.5 million in the same period in the previous year. The decrease is mainly attributable to decreased expenses in Lavie Bio, Biomica, Evogene and the cease of Canonic’s operations as mentioned above. Sales and marketing expenses for…

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Ben Klieve of Lake Street Capital Markets. You typically release cash burn guidance but did not do so today. What is your expected cash burn for 2025? And if you are not able to disclose, can you please explain why?

Hi, Ben. This is Yaron. And we’re happy to have you on the floor with us and thank you for your question. Our expected cash burn for 2025 from operations is expected to be between $6 million to $7 million. This amount does not include any cash that will come in from selling one or more of our subsidiaries.

The next question also from Ben Klieve. You describe exit efforts for your subsidiaries more today than you commonly do. How advanced are these efforts? And how many subsidiaries are under consideration for an exit?

Ben, hi. This is Ofer and of course, like Yaron said, we are very happy to have you with us. I can’t disclose much about where we are standing in this process. But I think from the fact that both Nir Nimrodi, our Chairman - new Chairman and me are putting a lot of focus on these aspects on how we’re going to fund the company in the future. I think this is very clear that we are putting a lot of efforts and emphasis in, in advancing to achieve those targets. I’m very happy that our subsidiaries create a real interest in that industry. The current situation at the industry is not great, but still because of the quality of our subsidiaries, we see a nice level of interest in what these companies are doing, definitely for collaboration, but also maybe for more strategic opportunity. So again, I can’t disclose much. But probably we won’t mention it the way we mentioned it if we didn’t feel that something like this might happen in the reasonable future.

A further question from Ben Klieve. You noted an expectation for initial sales in Brazil at Casterra in 2025. Please elaborate on, one, this expected to be from sale of seed or oil? And two, what line of business your potential customer is in, refiner, grain, processor, other?

So, with respect to this question, as we disclosed in the past, we have two seed production sites, one in Brazil and one in Kenya. No doubt that during 2025 most of our efforts was focusing on Kenya and this is where today we hold the majority of our seed inventory and where we are doing most of the activity. Still, we have seed production site in Brazil and we also have seeds as part from our inventory, it’s currently located in Brazil. And what we are planning for 2025 is both, seed sales and we have a sales team on site, but we also are planning to conduct a POC field trial to demonstrate the quality of our variety in an advanced growth protocol and we believe that this could generate - I don’t know if this year, but definitely next year, can generate revenue from selling of grain. Currently, the market in Brazil and also in Kenya, there is a huge demand for castor grain. So almost everything that you can grow, you can sell, but of course, the question is, you need to compare the amount of time you need to invest in growing the crop compared to the price of the grain and this is the challenge we believe that our variety with the growth protocol as we develop can generate a nice margin for everybody in this process. So, to make – to answer your question, this year, yes, definitely, we are focusing on seed sales. But also, we start an activity with respect to grain sales and here we are talking with crushing factory. There is few of them in Brazil and we are in good relationship with all of them.

The next question from Brett Reiss of Janney Montgomery Scott. What is the base case sales goal for Yalos spring wheat and soybeans?

We didn’t disclose this information. What I can say is that we see growing interest from previous year with respect to spring wheat. But what we are even more feeling positive about is that, selling Yalos for soybean grower, it seems to be easier from selling it to the wheat grower, mainly because the margin on soybean is much higher compared to wheat and enthusiasm of grower to use a different type of product to increase yield is higher, compared to wheat. So I can’t disclose more, because we are really in the penetration period. And we feel that it will be it’s hard to predict, but it will be better than the previous year.

The next question from Scott Henry of AGP. How should we think about the magnitude of castor sales in 2025? Would you expect Q1 ‘25 to be the largest quarter? How long is the shelf life of castor seeds?

I will start with the last question. The shelf life of castor seed is a few years and this is why we feel comfortable to produce castor for the inventory. So the 400 tons, we can keep them for quite a while. But of course, we are hoping to sell most of it during this year or at the beginning of next year. With respect to how should we expect to Q1 2025, again, there is always the question are we referring just to Casterra or are we referring to all of the Evogene Group, because we have other subsidiaries to generate revenue. And this is a little bit hard to address, because there could be and we are targeting and generate additional revenue through the other subsidiaries. But with respect to Casterra, first quarter it will be definitely as we already disclosed that we delivered 250 tons, so it will be a nice quarter for Casterra. But I’m not expecting this will be the strongest quarter for the company till the end of the year. So, there is more to expect coming from Casterra in 2025.

A further question from Scott Henry. For the agricultural line, what should we expect for milestones in 2025? Can you add color to the magnitude of the timing?

So I think that I was trying to disclose the answer to this question through very detailed targets of each subsidiary for 2025. So, I think that we try to emphasize what we’re expecting from Casterra for 2025 and we already start to disclose part from the achievements in the first quarter. We just now finished February, which is really the beginning of the year, but still, we are and we start this year in a positive way with Casterra and we have some expectation also from the other subsidiaries in the field segment, in the Ag segment, Lavie Bio and AgPlenus, I think that we have a very strong pipeline and as I mentioned earlier, they succeed to create a very nice interest based on their performance during 2024. And I think that there are some ongoing discussions already on potential future collaborations and as I said, you can see almost everything in the very detailed target for 2025 as we released today.

The next question a follow-up from Brett Reiss. What do you think the structure of the relationship between your possible joint venture partner in producing oil, 50-50? Or do they take the risk of financing and execution and we take back a royalty?

So currently, when we are talking about growing using our seeds in order to grow castor per grain, so we are taking the responsibility on the seed production and the cultivation itself, the farming itself. And then we are selling the grain and we grow under an offtake agreement. We are not growing just because we already know to who we are going to sell the grain. And we also agreed on what’s going to be the price. So we know exactly how much we are going to get for every tonne of cast of grain that we are going to get. We don’t take any obligation or responsibility on the seed – on the crushing of the grain into oil, definitely not during 2025. So - and this year, it’s going to be a proof-of-concept. We are targeting we already initiate, as we disclosed the first season in Kenya and we might - based on the results that we are going to get, we might expand this activity in the second season starting in September this year. So I hope that I disclose a little bit more about the structure that we are targeting, but this is just the beginning. I can imagine in the future many different structure, but the risk on Casterra/Evogene is very limited.

The next question, a further question from Scott Henry. Expense items, SG&A and R&D were lower in Q4 2024. Are these levels reflective for what we should expect in 2025? Or is there another step down?

First, I would like to say and you know I’m just mainly focusing on answering the questions. So I’d like to thank, of course, to Scott and Brett in joining to this call. So, once again, thank you for your interest in Evogene. With respect to the following question, so I would like to say the following. Putting aside Biomica, that this company because of the structure of activity that if they are - start to are initiate a clinical trial or they start to produce their product for clinical trial, which then itself a quite significant effect on the P&L, the consolidated P&L. So I think that what we saw in Q4 it’s going to present what we are going to see also in 2025 and might even be additional decline in the company expenses. So, yes, and I think that we also disclosed this information in our press release today that we start a process of reducing our headcount that it will be completed in Q1 - at the end of Q1. So we are going to see continue in expense reduction in Q1, compared to Q4 2024 and maybe even more in Q2 2024 - 2025.

There are no further questions at this time. Mr Haviv, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Yes, I would like to thank everybody for joining to this call. We finished year 2025 – 2024. It wasn’t an easy year, but the thing that still the numbers show that the company continued with its progress. You can see it in the increase in the revenue. You can see it in the decline in the expenses. I think that our subsidiary is now in a great position. So it can allow us to do the next steps and capture the value on our results in this subsidiaries and I’m looking forward to continue our discussion and continue to share with you our progress in the upcoming analyst calls.

Thank you. This concludes Evogene’s fourth quarter 2024 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.