Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ:EVGN) shares rose 4% on Tuesday following an announcement that the computational chemistry company is broadening its collaboration with Google Cloud to incorporate advanced AI Agents into its proprietary ChemPass AI platform.
The renewed partnership centers on developing AI Agents leveraging Google Cloud's Vertex AI environment to strengthen Evogene's small-molecule discovery and optimization processes for both pharmaceutical and agricultural applications. The move builds on an earlier phase of the relationship, which Evogene and Google Cloud initiated in October 2024.
Evogene says the AI agent integration is designed to automate and scale core discovery tasks, enabling wide-ranging parallel exploration of molecular designs while compressing the time spent in design-make-test-analyze loops. According to the company, these platform enhancements are intended to raise the accuracy and success rate when designing small-molecule-based products.
"The integration of AI agents into ChemPass AI is expected to improve our speed, cost structure, and ability to run multiple discovery programs in parallel," said Ofer Haviv, President and CEO of Evogene. "We are also excited about the potential to make parts of our real-world innovation tools globally accessible through Google Cloud Marketplace. This collaboration marks for us a shift from AI models to autonomous discovery, as ChemPass AI enters a new phase of scale and execution."
Evogene noted that the first stage of its work with Google Cloud produced a generative AI foundation model that now functions as a central element of the company's platform. Evogene attributes recent partnership activity to the capabilities provided by that foundational model.
Market reaction was immediate, with the stock moving higher on the announcement. The company frames the expanded effort as a progression from model development to deploying autonomous discovery workflows, alongside an intent to broaden access by listing tools on the Google Cloud Marketplace.
The collaboration stresses automation, parallel program execution, and a focus on improving both cost and speed for small-molecule design. Evogene explicitly links these platform advances to potential gains in program throughput and success rates for its pharmaceutical and agricultural discovery pipelines.
Sectors impacted: Biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agricultural technology, and cloud/AI infrastructure.