The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of April 11th, 2018

#2 Pairwise raises $25 million to address global food challenges

In California, Pairwise Plants closed a $25 million Series A financing co-led by Deerfield Management and Monsanto Growth Ventures.  Pairwise is an agricultural company bringing together leaders in agriculture and technology focused on using gene editing and leveraging natural diversity in agricultural crops to address global food challenges. 

“Our world needs healthier, more affordable, more convenient and more sustainable food,” said Dr. Tom Adams, incoming Pairwise CEO.  “Our goal is to solve agriculture problems across a wide range of food systems that are also acknowledged social problems – including food waste, food security and nutrition, and to enable other companies worldwide to benefit from gene editing through technology licensing and collaboration.” 

Pairwise has licensed programmable base editing technology from Harvard University and will be developing new gene-editing applications that Pairwise intends to make available to a wide array of food and agriculture companies spanning row and specialty crops, fruits and vegetables. 

Monsanto Growth Ventures invests $25M in Pairwise Plants gene editing company