It is increasingly difficult to discover and commercialize new synthetic active ingredients due to rising development costs, late-stage failures and challenging regulatory hurdles. On top of that, existing solutions continually face pesticide resistance issues. A company called “Vestaron” is embracing the power of peptides, starting with a class of compounds that kills insect pests efficiently, but is safe for humans, birds, fish, pollinators and the environment. As part of this, the company has developed a proprietary platform for peptide optimization and fermentation-based peptide production that will allow the development of a wide variety of biologic crop protection solutions.
A key part of the company’s strategy is to make peptide bioinsecticides that not only work as quickly as chemical insecticides to which growers have become accustomed but are also cost competitive and as efficacious. While not as inexpensive as older chemistries such as pyrethroids. In addition, peptides have the advantage of being softer on the environment, with no impact to pollinators. Each of the new peptide products will not only have a new mode of action, each will have its own new IRAC group. They would be rotated, much like growers rotate chemical pesticides. One advantage is that a new mode of action will extend the lifetime of other active ingredients. A second is reducing reliance on chemicals that are less desirable because of their safety profile, impact on non-targets, or other aspects.
Vastron believes growers should not have to sacrifice performance in their move toward more sustainable crop protection solutions. You can learn how Vestaron is leading the migration from chemical pesticides to biological alternatives at “Safe, Effective and Sustainable Crop Protection with Biological Peptides,” a webinar to be held Thursday, January 14 at 3pm CST featuring Anna Rath, president and CEO of Vestaron. REGISTER HERE
