9 July 2021 / Experts from environmental authorities in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland and Switzerland have published a new scientific paper that, for the first time, defines some important initial cornerstones in the environmental risk assessment of plants altered with new genomic techniques (i.e. ‘New GE’ or ‘genome editing’). The authors show that there can be no justification for only risk assessing plants with additionally inserted genes or with extensive genomic changes. Rather, all plants derived from New GE must be subjected to mandatory risk assessment.

25 June 2021 / Testbiotech is today publishing a new report showing the increasing number of patent applications being filed and granted in Europe on so-called gene scissors (new genetic engineering, New GE). The patent landscape is dominated by the ‘Corteva group’ which resulted from a merger of Dow AgroSciences and DuPont/Pioneer. Apart from its own patents, Corteva controls access to many other patents needed by breeders who want to use CRISPR/Cas technology.