Cibus Reports Fourth Quarter Financial Results and Provides Business Update

SAN DIEGO, March 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cibus, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBUS) (the “Company”), a leading agricultural technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, and provided a business update. Management will host a conference call and webcast today at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Management Commentary

Peter Beetham, Interim Chief Executive Officer of Cibus, commented, “2025 was a landmark year that validated our technology leadership and strategic vision. Our seven Rice partner customers continue to drive our near-term 2027 and 2028 commercial launch targets in our USA and LATAM geographic markets, which have the potential for more than $200 million annual addressable royalties at peak. In our Sustainable Ingredients program, we generated initial customer payments as we ramp up commercialization efforts for 2026. And, most recently, we were selected by the UK Government as a technology partner in its Farming Innovation Programme. Importantly, the regulatory environment we’ve been helping to shape for over a decade reached a critical inflection point with the EU’s political agreement on New Genomic Techniques legislation. This advancement and the recently activated Precision Breeding Act in the United Kingdom have prompted the recent UK investment in precision breeding innovation. Gene editing can no longer be called an experiment—it’s the present state of agricultural innovation, and Cibus is positioned ahead of this curve.”

Dr. Beetham continued, “What makes 2026 particularly exciting is the continuing convergence of technology leadership and commercial potential. For years, speed and scale were obstacles for seed companies. Our highly efficient single-cell editing system, coupled with our time bound, predictable trait development has fundamentally altered that equation, and we’re poised to capitalize on the results. As our Rice program advances toward our targeted 2027 and 2028 initial commercial launches, with our partners committing resources to access technology and accelerate their innovation timelines, we’re also beginning to see opportunities beyond traditional trait licensing. This includes the potential for genomic editing for partners in opportunity-rich markets like India, Asia (outside of China), and Latin America and expanding opportunities for sustainable ingredient development primarily for the consumer packaged goods industry and secondarily for other industries looking for better-for-you products. As we explore these opportunities, while maintaining our core trait licensing and royalty model, I am more excited than ever about our ability to build a durable, high value cash flow stream that will underpin long-term shareholder value creation.”

Dr. Beetham commented, “Finally, our recent successful public offering and continued streamlined focus and operational efficiency gains are providing a solid foundation for Cibus as we lead gene editing technologies in changing the scale and speed of plant breeding and advance toward near-term revenue catalysts.”

Company Highlights

• Global regulatory framework reaches critical inflection point as EU achieves political agreement on gene editing legislation—a watershed moment that Cibus helped shape through over a decade of regulatory education and leadership

• Rice program advances with seven customers; executed a non-binding commercialization letter of intent with Interoc to advance Latin America market entry in Ecuador and Colombia (2027 targeted), followed by U.S. expansion (2028 targeted) and phased expansion into Peru, Central America and the Caribbean

• Cibus ramps targeted 2026 Sustainable Ingredients expansion following achievement of first customer payment in Q4 2025

• Selected as a technology partner in UK Government’s Farming Innovation Programme, reinforcing Cibus’ leadership in precision breeding innovation and regulatory engagement

• Technology platform with ability to deliver time bound, predictable trait development at unprecedented speed and scale, with single-cell editing system achieving up to 50-70% efficiency in some instances—fundamentally changing breeding economics for seed company customers and enabling accelerated pace of innovation across crop portfolios

• Streamlining and efficiency initiatives progressing — on target to achieve goal of reducing annual net cash usage to approximately $30 million or less during 2026, while maintaining focus on nearest-term commercial opportunities and pursuit of longer-term high value partnering opportunities

• In January 2026, raised $22.3 million in gross proceeds from public offering primarily to support advancement toward near term initial revenues

2025 and 2026 Year-to-Date Business Update

Commercial Progress for Priority Programs and Global Regulatory Developments

Priority Pipeline Traits and Programs

Global Regulatory Development

2025 and 2026 Year-to-Date Progress within Opportunity Programs and Other Business Updates

In addition to Cibus’ self-funded Rice herbicide tolerance trait program and its actively advancing sustainable ingredients program, which is partially partner-funded and/or supported, the Company’s pipeline of developed and advanced traits provides several additional opportunities for partner-funded programs.

Opportunity Pipeline Traits and Programs (Available for Partnership)

• Soybean Platform

  • In January 2025, the Company successfully edited a Soybean cell for its HT2 trait, achieving sufficiently high editing rates that enabled expanded development of its Soybean platform in conjunction with its partially partner-funded and/or supported Sustainable Ingredients program.

• Wheat Platform

  • The Company has successfully regenerated plants from single cells in a wheat cultivar, opening up the potential to accelerate trait partner funded development in one of the world’s most cultivated crops.

Corporate and Industry Progress

• Capital Markets Activity

  • In January 2026, Cibus raised $22.3 million in gross proceeds, before deducting commissions payable in connection with the offering and offering expenses, from a public offering. This strengthened balance sheet supports continued trait development, particularly for Rice herbicide tolerance.

• Board Appointments

  • In September 2025, Cibus appointed Kimberly A. Box to its Board of Directors, strengthening the Company’s governance and commercialization strategy leadership capabilities.

  • In November 2025, Cibus appointed Craig Wichner to its Board of Directors, strengthening the Company’s agricultural sector expertise and strategic advisory capabilities.

Expected Milestones for Priority Pipeline Traits and Programs

Cibus intends to report ordinary course development progress and achievements in connection with its quarterly reporting process. Cibus presents below the most significant development and commercial milestone targets for its priority programs for 2026:

Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results

• Cash position: Cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2025, was $9.9 million. Taking into account the $19.8 million net proceeds received in 2026 from the Company’s offering in January 2026 and the impact of implemented cost saving initiatives, and without giving effect to potential financing transactions that Cibus may pursue from time-to-time, Cibus expects that existing cash and cash equivalents is sufficient to fund planned operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into late in the third quarter of 2026. Cibus’ Board of Directors, together with its financial advisor, continues to evaluate a full range of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.

• Research and development (R&D) Expense: R&D expense was $9.4 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $12.4 million in the year-ago period. The decrease of $3.0 million is primarily due to cost reduction initiatives.

• Selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expense: SG&A expense was $5.1 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $6.8 million in the year-ago period. The decrease of $1.7 million is primarily due to cost reduction initiatives.

• Long-lived assets impairment: Long-lived assets impairment was $9.1 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to no impairment in the year-ago period. The increase of $9.1 million non-cash expense is due to the impairment of long-lived assets resulting from a fair value assessment related to its Roseville, Minnesota facility as the Company announced during the fourth quarter of 2025 plans to wind-down operations at this facility.

• Royalty liability interest expense – related parties: Royalty liability interest expense – related parties was $9.4 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $8.2 million in the year-ago period. The increase of $1.2 million is due to the recognition of interest expense on the accumulating Royalty Liability.

• Non-operating (expense) income, net: Non-operating (expense) income, net was a nominal expense for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to income of $0.4 million in the year-ago period. The decrease in income of $0.4 million is driven by the fair value adjustment of the Company’s liability classified common warrants.

• Net loss: Net loss was $31.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $25.8 million in the year-ago period.

• Net loss per share of Class A common stock: Net loss per share of Class A common stock was $0.59 for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to net loss per share of Class A common stock of $0.87 in the year-ago period. The decrease of $0.28 in net loss per share of Class A common stock is primarily driven by cost reduction initiatives described above and a year-over-year increase in weighted average shares outstanding partially offset by the non-cash long-lived assets impairment in the fourth quarter of 2025 which accounted for approximately $0.17 in net loss per share of Class A common stock.
  

Conference Call and Webcast Information

Cibus will host a live webcast, Tuesday, March 17, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss its fourth quarter 2025 financial results and provide a full year business update for 2025. The conference call can be accessed live over the phone by dialing (800) 343-5172 or for international callers by dialing (203) 518-9856. The conference ID is CIBUS (24287). A replay of the call will be available through April 2, 2026, by dialing (844) 512-2921 or for international callers by dialing (412) 317-6671; the passcode is 11160915.

A live audio webcast of the call will be available under “Events & Presentations” in the Investor section of the Company’s website, investor.cibus.com. An archived webcast will be available on the Company’s website for 90 days after the event.

About Cibus

Cibus is a leader in developing traits (characteristics) that address critical productivity, yield and sustainability challenges. Cibus’ proprietary high-throughput gene editing technologies drive its long-term focus on productivity traits for farmers for the major global row crops. Cibus is not a seed company. It is a technology company that uses its gene editing technologies to develop plant traits at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional breeding and to license them to customers in exchange for royalties.

About the Cibus Trait Machine™ process and Rapid Trait Development System™

A key element of Cibus’ technology breakthrough is its high-throughput breeding process (referred to as the Trait Machine™ process). The Trait Machine process is a crop specific application of Cibus’ patented Rapid Trait Development System™ (RTDS^®). The proprietary technologies in RTDS integrate crop specific cell biology platforms with a series of gene editing technologies to enable a system of end-to-end crop specific precision breeding. It is the core technology platform for Cibus’ Trait Machine process: the first standardized end-to-end semi-automated crop specific gene editing system that directly edits a seed company’s elite germplasm. Each Trait Machine process requires a crop specific cell biology platform that enables Cibus to edit a single cell from a customer’s elite germplasm and grow that edited cell into a plant with the Cibus edits.

Cibus believes that RTDS and the Trait Machine process represent the technological breakthrough in plant breeding that is the ultimate promise of plant gene editing: high- throughput gene editing systems operating as an extension of seed company breeding programs. In 2024, the Trait Machine process was cited by Fast Company Magazine as one of the most innovative products in 2024.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included herein, including statements regarding Cibus’ operational and financial performance, Cibus’ liquidity and capital resources, the implementation and execution of cost savings initiatives, Cibus’ strategy, future operations, prospects, and plans, including the anticipated receipt of commercial revenues and additional funding and the achievement of commercial milestone targets, are forward-looking statements. Cibus’ assessment of the period of time through which its financial resources will be adequate to support its operations is a forward-looking statement. Because this involves such risks and uncertainties, the Company could use its available capital resources sooner than it currently expects. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “intend,” “expect,” “plan,” “scheduled,” “could,” “would” and “will,” or the negative of these and similar expressions.

These forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations and assumptions of Cibus’ management about future events, which are based on currently available information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and beyond the control of Cibus. Cibus’ actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements could be materially different than those expressed, implied, or anticipated by forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: Cibus’ need for additional near-term funding to finance its activities and challenges in obtaining additional capital on acceptable terms, or at all; changes in expected or existing competition; challenges to Cibus’ intellectual property protection and unexpected costs associated with defending intellectual property rights; increased or unanticipated time and resources required for Cibus’ platform or trait product development efforts; Cibus’ reliance on third parties in connection with its development activities, including reliance on partner-funding and/or support for the advancement of its Sustainable Ingredients program; challenges associated with Cibus’ ability to effectively license its productivity traits and sustainable ingredient products; the risk that farmers do not recognize the value in germplasm containing Cibus’ traits or that farmers and processors fail to work effectively with crops containing Cibus’ traits; delays or disruptions in the Company’s platform or trait product development efforts, particularly insofar as they affect the Company’s strategic priority programs; challenges that arise in respect of Cibus’ production of high-quality plants and seeds cost effectively on a large scale; Cibus’ dependence on distributions from Cibus Global, LLC to pay taxes and cover its corporate and overhead expenses; regulatory developments that disfavor or impose significant burdens on gene editing processes or products; Cibus’ ability to achieve commercial success; commodity prices and other market risks facing the agricultural sector; technological developments that could render Cibus’ technologies obsolete; changes in macroeconomic and market conditions, including inflation, supply chain constraints, and rising interest rates; dislocations in the capital markets and challenges in accessing liquidity and the impact of such liquidity challenges on Cibus’ ability to execute on its business plan; the Company’s assessment of the period of time through which its financial resources will be adequate to support operations; and other important factors discussed in the “Risk Factors” section of Cibus’ Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on March 17, 2026, as may be updated from time-to-time in Cibus’ subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q or Current Reports on Form 8-K. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties occur, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and plans could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements.

In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent Cibus’ views as of the date hereof. Cibus specifically disclaims any obligation to update such forward-looking statements in the future, except as required under applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Cibus’ views as of any date subsequent to the date hereof.

CIBUS CONTACTS:

INVESTOR RELATIONS
Jeff Sonnek
jeff.sonnek@icrinc.com

MEDIA RELATIONS
Colin Sanford
colin@bioscribe.com
203-918-4347