January 10, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan

The Bayer Trendlines Ag Innovation Fund and the Trendlines Group have partnered to establish ProJini Agchem, a startup focused on creating a platform technology to develop new pesticides using novel modes of action. 

The Bayer Trendlines Ag Innovation Fund was launched in April 2016 through a partnership between Bayer and the Trendlines Group. Under the terms of the five-year agreement, Bayer seeded the fund with $10 million, which will be managed by Trendlines. 

The fund brings together Bayer’s deep well of experience in agricultural science and regulatory issues, with Trendlines’ experience in early-stage investing in cutting-edge agtech initiatives, and will act as a vehicle to back solutions that will increase productivity in food and feed production, renewable raw materials, and fiber.

“The agricultural market is ripe for groundbreaking innovation and Trendlines, with its focus on developing startups and new technologies beyond a one-time investment, shares our commitment to supporting productive and sustainable agriculture,” said Adrian Percy, who was head of Research & Development at Bayer’s division Crop Science at the time.

A Novel Approach

Pesticides represent a market with annual sales of US$55 billion as of 2018, and are the main tools available to farmers to control pests that cause crop yield losses up to 40 percent.

But as pests increasingly develop resistance to current solutions, and regulatory issues continue to introduce hurdles, traditional methods of pest control are proving to be outmoded. 

“The need to develop new crop protection technologies to enhance food security is of high importance. Not only are known pesticides ineffective due to resistance, they are also of environmental concern,” said Steve Rhodes, chairman and CEO of Trendlines.

However, as the broad benefits and promising results of biologicals become more known, as well as their potential role as an impact investment, we are seeing an increasing number of startups in the field securing larger rounds of capital.

The biologicals market includes biopesticides, biofertilizers, and biostimulants, which due to increased regulation and a growing focus on sustainable practices, are commanding an increasing share of the market.  According to a just-released report by ResearchandMarkets.com, the agricultural biologicals market is estimated to have had a value of USD $6.75 billion in 2017, and is projected to reach USD $12.86 billion by 2022, which translates to a compound annual growth rate of nearly 14 percent.

“Consumer concerns over food provenance and safety – where food comes from and how its produced (i.e. organic, non-GMO, sustainable production methods, etc.) – has emerged as a major trend in developed markets,” noted Philippe de Lapérouse and Mark Zavodnyik of HighQuest Consulting, who included Crop Services and Inputs as a sector to watch in 2019.

ProJini Agchem is developing a biological pest solution platform focused on a new type of molecular target that is at the core of every organism: protein-protein interactions.

Due to their spatial and chemical characteristics, developing inhibitors for such systems using conventional approaches is rather challenging. However scientists Maayan Gal, PhD and Itay Bloch at the Migal Galilee Research Institute Ltd. have developed a means of leveraging a combination of computational biophysical methods to overcome these challenges. This work has gained ProJini Agchem an exclusive license to sue this platform to further develop novel pesticides with new modes of action.

“Discovering new active ingredients and modes of action remains a top objective for agriculture in the future” said Axel Trautwein, head of Small Molecules, Crop Science division of Bayer.

And because protein-protein interactions are species-specific, Rhodes stated that solutions developed by the company using this mode of action will prove to be less harmful to the environment.

“Establishing ProJini Agchem with Trendlines is a prime example of how our ‘open innovation’ model works in Crop Science R&D, with the aim of supporting farmers to always achieve better standards in protecting their harvests,”  added Allen Christian, head of Open Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Crop Science division of Bayer.

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.