June 11, 2020

By Michelle Pelletier Marshall, Global AgInvesting Media

Boston-based GreenLight Biosciences, Inc., develops RNA-based solutions for agriculture and pharmaceutical applications with its unique cell-free GreenWorx bioproduction platform. The platform is capable of producing RNA sequences of exceptional fidelity in a fully-scalable fashion, and at a lower cost than other platforms, all done in an environmentally-friendly, sustainable manner with the goal of improving the health of people and the planet. GAI News first met Co-founder and CEO Andrey Zarur at an agtech forum in Boston last fall where he participated in an executive interview.

“We have a climate problem and need to transition crops to permanent crops,” Zarur explained. “At the same time, we have to double the amount of food and treat pests so we don’t lose 40 percent of our harvests to them, yet we know pesticides are harmful.”

Enter RNA – the oldest molecule on the planet. As Zarur explained it, GreenLight BioScience efforts do not genetically modify anything, the products they are developing target the unwanted pests while providing similar levels of control and competitive prices in a much safer and more sustainable way. The company first developed a solution for dealing with the dreaded Colorado Potato Beetle, and is now working on combating other insects and fungi through its proprietary applications.

Fund-raising efforts for its novel approach includes an $18 million round, completed in September 2017 led by Fall Line Capital, and supported by the likes of S2G Ventures, Syngenta Ventures, and Macro Capital Investments. In January 2019, the company announced a $50 million first closing, which is now complete and oversubscribed at $54 million. More recently, as COVID-19 was raging in the U.S., GreenLight announced another $20 million special purpose round to help develop a promising vaccine candidate to deal with the pandemic. Investors in that round included The Flu Lab, Xeraya Capital, Baird Capital, and Alexandria Ventures.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: A week after this story was posted, the company announced an oversubscribed $102 million Series D funding from top-tier investors to rapidly expand production of its RNA products for agricultural and life sciences applications.)

GAI News caught up with Zarur at his Medford, Massachusetts, office to learn more about the power of RNA in agriculture.

1). This is a very promising technology for agriculture applications. Can you please explain how the cell-free bioproduction process works, and has been applied so far to solve agriculture quandaries?

Cell-free bioproduction was a critical breakthrough in making RNA-based pest controls commercially viable. Most pesticides sprayed on crops today kill not only the target pest, but also many non-target pollinators and beneficial insects.

Consider that in just one acre of farmland there are approximately 10 million individual insects. but just a tiny percentage of these bugs will eat your crop. Yet so many of them are impacted with today’s conventional methods.

Taking us back to science class, RNA is a natural molecule used by all living things to carry out the instructions from our body’s DNA (gene expression). GreenLight Biosciences uses a natural biological process called RNA interference (RNAi) to selectively knock out a pest’s gene activity, leaving the remaining bugs and other beneficial biodiversity unscathed. Because our RNAi pesticide insecticide is completely carbon-based, it leaves no residue in the soil, air, or water, and it does not contribute to global warming in a significant way. This new kind of biocontrol can also be used to selectively target weeds, viruses, and nematodes.

Farmers gain a powerful new way to reduce their use of chemical pesticides, growing healthy crops in an environmentally-friendly way. Consumers’ increasing demands for safer, toxin-free foods are met. And the world gains greater food security with effective agricultural products.

But producing RNAi pesticides has been an extremely expensive and energy-intensive process. GreenLight’s breakthrough is in cracking the code for rapid and affordable RNA production at the scale needed for commercial agriculture. The cost of RNA has been as high as $10,000 per gram. GreenLight’s cell-free bioprocessing platform can produce targeted RNA products at a fraction of the cost, and competitive with today’s chemical pesticides.

RNA molecules are typically synthesized using fermentation in vats of living microbes, which has challenges with purity, cost, energy, and scalability. GreenLight’s cell-free bioproduction platform overcomes these challenges by breaking down RNA from low-cost yeast and rebuilding them into targeted RNA enzymes. With this approach, enzymes don’t require energy to work; cells regenerate the necessary energy.

GreenLight’s first commercial product will target the Colorado Potato Beetle, an invasive pest that destroys potato crops. Based on field trials to date, it is effective at extremely low use rates, minimizing residue on the plant and exposure to soil and water. The foliar spray product has an application rate between 2 to 4 grams ai/acre. For comparison, the next lowest competitor is being used at a rate of around 30 grams ai/acre.

And many new pesticide candidates are in the works. Our cell-free bioproduction accelerates the process of getting new products into the market. If the genome of a pest is mapped, GreenLight can quickly design an RNAi sequence to impact that specific pest. 

2). Your background is in the science of RNA. How has your team come together to bridge this to applications in agriculture?

If you look at them under a microscope, an insect isn’t that much different from a human in the way DNA expresses genes and creates proteins. We have the same challenges to get RNA to work on a bug, as we do to have it work in a plant, as we do to have it work in a human.

To our scientific team, RNA is RNA – the same natural molecule that every single organism uses to execute its “operating system”. It’s an incredible singularity when you think about it.

Consequently, the same challenges of purity, production cost, scalability, etc. are universal whether you are developing a pesticide, a vaccine, or other biological solution. So, our scientific team is one and integrated. It didn’t make sense to split us up into in separate ag and life sciences companies. 

3). Is the technology currently available? Are any agribusinesses utilizing your product? If not, what is the expectation for it to be commercially available?

We plan to launch our first product in 2022. We are entering our third year of field trials with it and have already conducted over 30 trials across the country. We have seen positive results and striking differences in plants treated with GreenLight’s product (healthy and green) vs. non-treated plants (wilted, with holes in leaves). The product’s efficacy has been confirmed in laboratory and greenhouse insect-feeding assays as well.

While our first RNA product targets the Colorado Potato Beetle, we are leveraging the flexibility of RNA technology to build a pipeline of products to address even more pest and disease problems facing farmers.

4). Where does GreenLight Biosciences stand in its fundraising efforts, and what are the investing opportunities going forward?

In January 2019 we announced a $54 million funding round to rapidly expand our discovery and development efforts. That round, which was oversubscribed, was led by S2G Ventures, Baird Capital, and Blue I/O, along with several additional top-tier investors.

In May 2020, as COVID-19 was raging in the U.S., we announced another $20 million special purpose round to help us develop a promising vaccine candidate to deal with the pandemic.

We are currently negotiating our next round of funding, separate from the COVID-19 funding. My sense is that we’re going to be significantly oversubscribed and will be making an announcement soon.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: A week after this story was posted, GreenLight Biosciences announced an oversubscribed $102 million Series D funding from top-tier investors to rapidly expand production of its RNA products for agricultural and life sciences applications.)

5). Lastly, the world has been gripped by a pandemic. How has this affected your company, product and strategy? Is an RNA-solution even more viable now than ever before?

Our mission at GreenLight Biosciences is to use biology to address some of the biggest challenges facing the health of our plant and its people. For a while now, we have been building a life sciences business to manufacture and develop RNA based vaccines and therapeutics. At the onset of the crisis, we accelerated our vaccine efforts to establish a scalable current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) manufacturing platform. This platform will allow for the production of almost any RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine at a scale and cost that enables global delivery. In parallel, we are also advancing a number of RNA-based vaccines and therapeutics against COVID-19.

But we are also moving aggressively on a couple of new programs on the agricultural side we consider to be vital because of the potential damage to human societies. One program targets the Fall Armyworm, which we believe has serious humanitarian impact beyond COVID-19. This South American-native pest is now spreading globally, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. And it has the potential do destroy 50 million metric tons of corn at a cost of billions of dollars for a population that can’t afford either.

ABOUT ANDREY ZARUR

Andrey Zarur has been active in early stage life sciences companies for over 20 years, participating in the creation, IPO, and M&A of over a dozen companies in the healthcare and clean energy sectors. Prior to starting GreenLight, Zarur was managing partner at Kodiak Venture Partners, an early-stage, technology-driven venture fund based in Boston. He holds a masters and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and undergraduate degrees from the National University of Mexico. Zarur is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and holds over 100 provisional and issued patents. Learn more at www.greenlightbiosciences.com.

~ Michelle Pelletier Marshall is managing editor for HighQuest Group’s Global AgInvesting’s GAI Gazette magazine and its WIA Today blog, as well as a contributor to GAI News and the Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at mmarshall@highquestgroup.com.