Durham, North Carolina and Oxford, United Kingdom, Feb. 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pairwise, a global innovator in agriculture, today announced a licensing agreement with Wild Bioscience Ltd. (Wild Bio) granting the company access to Pairwise’s Fulcrum® genome editing tools. Under the agreement, Wild Bio will integrate Fulcrum® tools into its research and development pipeline to design and develop more resilient crops for a changing climate.
Wild Bio applies artificial intelligence and evolutionary biology to identify and design beneficial plant traits, pairing computational discovery with commercial genetics to accelerate crop improvement. Through this collaboration, Wild Bio will leverage Pairwise’s CRISPR-based genome editing tools to translate AI-driven trait insights into elite crop varieties. The license applies to a range of row crops that Wild Bio operates across for its yield enhancement and carbon removal projects.
“At Wild Bio, our goal is to develop resilient crops for a changing planet – sustainably improving yields while reducing agricultural footprints,” said Dr. Ross Hendron, CEO of Wild Bioscience. “We focus on rapidly translating AI-driven trait discovery into elite crop genetics spanning multiple species. Pairwise’s plant-optimized genome editing approach expands our toolkit for efficiently deploying our traits across crops.”
“Pairwise built Fulcrum® to enable innovators across agriculture to realize the full potential of precision breeding,” said Dr. Tom Adams, CEO of Pairwise. “By licensing our platform to partners like Wild Bio, we are extending access to advanced editing tools that help accelerate trait development, and by extension, our mission to build a healthier world, by making plants easier to grow and eat.”
The Pairwise Fulcrum® platform includes proprietary gene editing tools, enzymes, and trait libraries that enable precise genetic changes, unlocking plants’ inherent potential and significantly accelerating the development of impactful crop traits compared to traditional breeding methods. The licensing will cover research and commercial purposes.
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About Pairwise
Pairwise is agriculture’s gene editing powerhouse, building a healthier world through partnership and plant innovation. Co-founded by early pioneers of CRISPR, our Fulcrum® Platform accelerates the development of climate-resilient, nutritious, and sustainable crops. As trusted partners to global industry leaders and nonprofit institutions, we help breeders move faster while transforming food and agriculture for farmers, consumers, and the planet. Founded in 2017 and based in Durham, NC, Pairwise is committed to delivering innovations that make food easier to grow and better to eat. For more information, visit www.pairwise.com.
About Wild Bioscience
Wild Bioscience Ltd. is an agricultural biotechnology company applying evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence to develop resilient, high-performance crops for a changing planet. Founded in 2021 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford, the company was established by Dr. Ross Hendron and Prof. Steve Kelly and is backed by the Ellison Institute Oxford, Oxford Science Enterprises, Braavos Capital, and the University of Oxford. For more information, visit www.wildbioscience.com.
Communications Pairwise communications@pairwise.com Communications Wild Bioscience team@wildbioscience.com
