FMC, Devgen Collaborate on Research

November 2, 1999

FMC Corporation's Agricultural Products Group and Devgen will initiate a collaborative research effort to discover novel pesticides. Devgen is a privately held drug and drug target discovery company based in Ghent, Belgium.

Devgen is experienced in the use of "Caenorhabditis elegans," a tiny nematode worm well known in academia as a tool to study animal cell biology and development. Devgen's proprietary technology uses the worm as a live test tube to identify optimal targets for drug discovery and the mode of action of active compounds.

The company combines the C. elegans genetics with biochemistry, cell and molecular biology ad high throughput screening to find new chemical drug leads. "While our technology platform is designed to enhance discovery of human pharmaceuticals, it can also be applied with great efficiency to the new challenges of molecular target-based pesticide discovery," says Thierry Bogaert, Devgen's CEO.

Kim Foster, FMC vice president and general manager, says the company has restructured its research and development discovery program to take advantage of "several new technologies that will radically change the way new products are discovered. Through an extensive search of genomics collaborators, FMC believes that Devgen offers unique, world-class capabilities directly applicable to our discovery strategies."