BEIJING, May 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Origin Agritech Ltd. (NASDAQ:SEED) (the "Company" or "Origin"), a leading Chinese agricultural technology company, today announced its unaudited financial results for the six months ended March 31, 2026.
Business Accomplishments and Highlights for the Six Months Ended March 31, 2026, and to date:
Strategic Partnerships and Commercialization:
In March 2026, Origin formally launched the "Aoyun 2026" New Variety Promotion Program at its 2026 Annual Marketing Conference in Changsha, Hunan Province. The integrated commercial campaign is designed to accelerate market adoption of Origin's latest portfolio of high-performing seed products, including Jingke 317, Jinqiao 8, Xundan 203, and Aoyu 728, across all of China's principal corn-producing regions. As part of the launch, CEO Weibin Yan personally signed performance accountability contracts for FY2026 and FY2027 with the Company's subsidiary general managers. Six regional teams concurrently finalized spring planting season deployment plans across China's key corn-growing markets.
In November 2025, Origin executed a patent license agreement with Shunfeng BioTech, bringing the Cas-SF01 gene-editing nuclease into the Company's biotechnology toolkit. The license materially strengthens Origin's position in next-generation corn trait development by pairing Cas-SF01 as a precision-editing instrument with the Company's proprietary Hi3 induction-line delivery platform, advancing the commercialization pathway for stacked-trait hybrids.
The Company's Origin Marker Biological Breeding Service Consortium, established in October 2024 with China Golden Marker Biotechnology Co., Ltd., continued to expand its cooperative network during the reporting period, advancing the licensing and commercialization pathway for Origin's GMO insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant traits and gene-editing technologies.
Origin has deepened collaborations with top corn breeders across different ecological zones, conducting joint crossing using core germplasm and leveraging the Company's nationwide testing network. Over 10,000 new corn combinations have been introduced or jointly assembled this year. A project led by Professors Jiansheng Li and Feng Tian of China Agricultural University is developing new germplasm from the Suwan population. Origin has also introduced the highly competitive variety Zhengtai 889 (co-developed with Professor Jihua Tang of Henan Agricultural University and Mr. Zhou Qingwei of Henan Sutai), which ranked first in national trials, and the CAU-bred variety Zhongnongda 8538, which performed strongly in Northwest China.
Biotechnology Advancements:
During the 2025 winter season in South China, the Company's breeding work produced over 30,000 new corn test-cross combinations, including promising ones utilizing breakthrough germplasm such as QD14 for the Huang-Huai-Hai summer corn region. Using the Hi3 gene-editing technology, Origin has been improving main varieties for different ecological zones, particularly for plant density requirements. Leveraging two leaf-angle reduction genes exclusively licensed from China Agricultural University, precision "smart plant type" improvements have been completed on main varieties, including Yufeng 303 and T391, and the Company is accelerating the commercial conversion of these achievements.
The Company continues to advance the commercialization of its BBL2-2 transgenic maize program, which received a GMO safety certificate from China's Ministry of Agriculture in May 2024. BBL2-2 incorporates dual insect-resistance genes (Cry1Ab and Cry3Bb) and a glyphosate-tolerance gene (Cp4-epsps), providing the stacked-trait foundation for Origin's next generation of biotechnology hybrids.
Origin's national R&D platform now houses more than 200,000 corn germplasm resources. It supports in-house AI-assisted breeding programs that operate across genomic selection, image-based phenotyping, and donor-recipient pairing for the gene-editing pipeline, materially shortening the Company's breeding cycle and trait validation timeline.
Regulatory Approvals and Licensing:
