20 June 2024
"We share the fundamental knowledge that KeyGene generates”
KeyGene 35 years: our shareholders' reflections
An interview with Jaap Mazereeuw, CEO of Enza Zaden, one of KeyGene’s Founding Fathers, completed with quotes by other shareholder representatives.
KeyGene is owned by four strategic shareholders that are all active in the field of vegetable breeding: Enza Zaden, Rijk Zwaan, Limagrain Vegetable Seeds, and Takii. “We share the fundamental knowledge that KeyGene generates”, says Jaap Mazereeuw of Enza Zaden. “This started 35 years ago with basic biotechnological techniques and will evolve around system biology in the future.”
Enza Zaden was one of the original ‘founding fathers’ of KeyGene, 35 years ago. “Those were the days when biotech became really hot”, Mazereeuw recalls. “Our companies did not own large laboratories, if any, so we envisioned it was a good idea to share the facilities that were necessary to keep the pace of the upcoming technologies.”
“Our discussions and collaborative projects with KeyGene are loaded with energy and enthusiasm, and many new directions in plant breeding related research have ensued from these interactions.”
Ben Scheres, Rijk Zwaan
Pre-competitive technology
The benefits of sharing general, so-called ‘pre-competitive technologies’ still holds for the current shareholders of KeyGene, Mazereeuw stresses. “The market in vegetable seeds is very divers and it has short cycles. So, for example, the AFLP-technology, that speeds up the classic plant breeding considerably, by using genetic markers, has helped each of our companies a lot in achieving our individual goals.”
Common interest of competitors
Mazereeuw acknowledges that the four current shareholders are competitors as well, as they are all active in the business of selling vegetable seeds. “Therefore, our common interest in the activities of KeyGene is limited to the pre-competitive techniques. This model has worked well for us in the past 35 years and will keep on working very well, is our expectation.”
“Our successful collaboration with Keygene has been, from the start, highly instrumental to engage Limagrain Vegetable Seeds in the efficient deployment of Marker Assisted Breeding, thus accelerating the creation of novel varieties. Since then, Keygene has remained at the forefront of Biotechnologies by developing and investing in state-of-the-art tools and methods, paving the way for the convergence of genetics and genomics.”
Gilles Gay, Limagrain Vegetable Seeds
Environmental interactions
From discovering the latest techniques in biotech, Mazereeuw expects KeyGene to move towards a more general understanding of the interactions between genetics and the environment. “Now that we are understanding the genetics better and better, the time has come to explore the interactions between genetics, the environment and the final characteristics, or the ‘phenotype’ of a crop.
In a greenhouse, the environment is of course very much controlled. In the field however, the environment is becoming more and more unpredictable. Through the development of, for example, specific sensors that can monitor the environmental conditions and behavior of a plant, we should try to understand those interactions.”
“Our long-term collaboration with KeyGene has significantly enhanced our breeding capabilities and contributed to our position as a leader in the field. KeyGene’s expertise has brilliantly combined technological innovation with practical product development, which brings significant benefits to our business. We recognize that technological innovation is critical to our continued growth in an increasingly uncertain business environment, and we have high expectations for our future collaboration with KeyGene.”
Takaharu Kawase, Takii & Company Ltd
Bright future
The ’KeyGene-model’ of pre-competitive cooperation has a bright future ahead, Mazereeuw says. “Some of the original techniques that were brand new decades ago, are already in the museum of crop technology today.
By working as innovative and as out-of-the-box as KeyGene has been doing for the past 35 years, we will keep on benefiting from the cutting-edge technologies that are too big, costly or risky for us individually. Even though we do have our own laboratories nowadays”, he jokingly adds.
“Keygene has played a vital part at the start of Enza’s journey to transform variety development through the development and application of advanced molecular technologies, tools and innovative ideas. 35 years later Keygene is for us a trusted partner, expanding our internal “lab bench” and blue ocean thinking.”
Andreas Sewing, ENZA Zaden
Read the other KeyGene 35 years interviews
- Lora Kilgore-Norquest, Ingredion: “KeyGene helps us to quickly address the consumers’ needs”
- Chris Winefield, Lincoln University NZ: “A realistic view on a shared labor of love”
- Roeland van Ham, KeyGene: “Lateral thinking is in our DNA”
- Daniel Fordham, Oxford Nanopore Technologies: “KeyGene helped us to democratise sequencing technology”
- Ponnusamy Umashankar, Mahindra Agri Solutions Ltd.: “Speed and precision are the passion and purpose of our collaboration”
- Jeroen Stuurman, KeyGene: “It’s not all about genes in our research”