Flagship Pioneering Unveils Terrana Biosciences to Deliver Adaptive, Targeted Agricultural Solutions through a Novel RNA Technology Platform

Rhea-AI Summary

Flagship Pioneering has unveiled Terrana Biosciences, a new agricultural technology company developing RNA-based solutions for crop enhancement and protection. The company emerges with an initial $50 million commitment from Flagship Pioneering after four years of platform development.

Terrana's proprietary RNA technology platform enables the development of targeted products that can work throughout a plant's lifecycle, creating solutions that adapt to variable climate conditions. The company has already demonstrated proof of concept in tomatoes, corn, and soy, and generated a pipeline of over 15 potential products in specialty and row crops.

The company's platform leverages AI and computational models to assemble a vast RNA library and design system for creating novel functional crop traits. Their solutions aim to help farmers combat diseases and pests, adapt to climate conditions, and maintain soil health, while offering advantages over conventional approaches in terms of timing flexibility and environmental impact.

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• None.

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• Company is still in early stages with no commercial products yet
• Will require regulatory approvals before products can reach market

Insights

Agricultural Biotechnology Specialist

Flagship's $50M launch of Terrana brings RNA technology from healthcare to agriculture, potentially disrupting crop protection with adaptive solutions.

Flagship Pioneering's unveiling of Terrana Biosciences represents a significant expansion of RNA technology into agriculture. With an initial $50 million commitment, Terrana is positioned to develop non-GMO crop solutions by leveraging RNA's natural role in plant biology. The company has already built an impressive foundation over four years, demonstrating proof-of-concept in major crops (tomatoes, corn, and soy) and establishing a pipeline of 15+ potential products.

What makes Terrana's approach particularly innovative is its ability to deliver agricultural solutions that can be applied at any point in a plant's lifecycle - a significant advantage over conventional approaches that typically have narrow application windows. This flexibility could be transformative for farmers facing increasingly unpredictable growing conditions.

The technology's foundation in RNA biology is particularly noteworthy. Rather than altering plant genomes, Terrana's platform works with plants' natural RNA ecosystems to influence trait expression. This approach potentially sidesteps regulatory hurdles associated with genetic modification while still delivering targeted trait improvements.

From a technical perspective, Terrana has developed three novel technology classes and demonstrated their efficacy across both specialty and row crops. The platform's ability to generate solutions faster and less expensively than traditional agricultural R&D processes addresses a critical industry need - the ability to respond quickly to emerging threats like new diseases, pests, or climate stressors.

For the agricultural industry, this represents a potential step-change in how crop protection and enhancement solutions are developed and deployed. The emphasis on adaptability and real-time response capability directly addresses the increasing unpredictability farmers face due to climate change and evolving pest pressures.

Solutions focus on enhancing crop resilience, protecting yields, and addressing critical challenges in the global food system

The company emerges after four years of platform development with an initial commitment of $50 million from Flagship Pioneering

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, today unveiled Terrana Biosciences™, a company pioneering RNA-based agricultural solutions to deliver protective and enhanced crop traits without altering the plant genome. Through its proprietary RNA technology platform, Terrana is developing targeted products designed to work at any time in a plant's lifecycle, enabling a continuous product pipeline that is adaptive and responsive to variable climate conditions and capable of generating new solutions at a fraction of the time and cost associated with conventional agriculture approaches. Flagship has initially committed $50 million to Terrana to scale operations and develop its first products in crop protection and yield.

"At Flagship Pioneering, we build groundbreaking platforms that address the world's most pressing challenges. With Terrana, we are bringing an entirely new dimension of innovation to agriculture through similar RNA technology that we pioneered in human health," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Terrana, Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. "This approach will empower farmers with precise, adaptive solutions to combat threats to crops in fields and orchards and enhance resiliency, sustainability, and productivity in the global food system."

Trees and crops naturally use a vast ecosystem of self-replicating RNAs to influence trait expression. These native RNAs are abundant, diverse, and are already part of the plant's own biology, functioning like a native language that helps to communicate traits like growth, stress response, and development. Using advanced AI and computational models, Terrana has assembled a vast library of RNAs and built a design system that enables efficient assembly of novel functional crop traits, generated with unprecedented precision, versatility and speed. The platform has already created three novel technology classes, demonstrated proof of concept in tomatoes, corn, and soy, and generated a pipeline of 15+ potential products in specialty and row crops.

Tools developed using Terrana's platform will enable farmers to fight and prevent disease and pests, adapt quickly to climatic conditions, and maintain soil health. Terrana's solutions are fine-tuned for amplification, mobility in plants, stability in different environments, and heritability across plant generations. Terrana's product candidates also avoid the trade-offs of existing conventional approaches, which often can be applied only at a specific time in the plant's life cycle and come with negative environmental impacts.

"RNA-based technology has delivered lifesaving advancements in human health. We are now applying this same approach to reimagine what's possible for agriculture," said Ignacio Martinez, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Terrana and General Partner at Flagship Pioneering. "Using the language of nature, we can give plants new instructions, yielding adaptable solutions rooted directly in the plant's natural physiology. Our approach opens a new world of possibilities in annual and perennial crops for the benefit of farmers, people and the planet."

"Today, farmers make many important and costly decisions about seeds, fertilizers and crop protection before the crop year even begins, requiring them to rely on projections and historical trends from prior growing seasons rather than responding to real-time conditions on the ground," said Ryan Rapp, Co-Founder and CEO of Terrana Biosciences and Origination Partner at Flagship. "What's more, the increased pace of climate fluctuations and disease threats far exceeds today's slow and expensive R&D processes, leaving farmers all too often behind the curve. Terrana's ability to unlock all aspects of seed and crop traits in plants enables an entirely new set of agile solutions that can be applied at any time in the growing season, from seed to postharvest. In an increasingly unpredictable environment – from wildly fluctuating global markets to extreme weather events to fast-moving pest and disease pressures – farmers need these new tools to enable timely, efficient, nimble and, critically, cost-saving decision making."

In addition to Rapp, Terrana's leadership team includes Matthew Lingard, Chief Technology Officer of Terrana and Senior Principal at Flagship, Folashade Sabitu, Head of Regulatory and Ramtin Ahmadi, Vice President of Strategy and Operations. Terrana also benefits from guidance from a board of directors that includes Martinez, longtime leader in global agriculture Hugh Grant, Invaio's CEO and Flagship CEO-Partner Amy O'Shea, and Flagship's Chair of Asia Pacific and Strategic Advisor, André Andonian. To learn more about Terrana, visit www.terranabio.com.

About Terrana Biosciences

Terrana Biosciences combines RNA technology with advanced computational biology to deliver sustainable solutions for modern agriculture. Through its proprietary platform, the company is pioneering new technology classes and generatively designing versatile RNA-based products for every aspect of plant health, from seed to stem. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2021, Terrana is led by an experienced team, including RNA and plant pathology experts.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering invents and builds bioplatform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $60 billion in aggregate value. Flagship is operating with $14 billion of assets under management as of its latest capital raise, announced in July 2024. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises over 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Lila Sciences, Tessera Therapeutics and Valo Health.

Media Contact: press@flagshippioneering.com

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SOURCE Flagship Pioneering

FAQ

What is Terrana Biosciences' main technology platform?

Terrana Biosciences uses a proprietary RNA technology platform that develops targeted agricultural solutions to deliver protective and enhanced crop traits without altering the plant genome.

How much funding has Terrana Biosciences received from Flagship Pioneering?

Flagship Pioneering has made an initial commitment of $50 million to Terrana to scale operations and develop its first products in crop protection and yield.

Which crops has Terrana Biosciences successfully tested its technology on?

Terrana has demonstrated proof of concept in tomatoes, corn, and soy.

How many potential products does Terrana Biosciences have in its pipeline?

Terrana has generated a pipeline of more than 15 potential products in specialty and row crops.

Who is the CEO of Terrana Biosciences?

Ryan Rapp serves as the Co-Founder and CEO of Terrana Biosciences and is also an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering.