By adopting technologies and best practices from pharmaceutical companies, agricultural companies can create novel products quickly and economically.
“If you look 30 years ago, the pharmaceutical companies were in the same position where ag is today,” explains Jacqueline Heard, Enko Chem CEO.
The startup uses target-based approaches to identify new molecules that can be used in crop protection products.
Billions Versus Thousands
Instead of screening thousands of molecules for activity on pests, Enko Chem rapidly screens hundreds of billions of molecules for activity on a target protein.
“The target-based approach allows us to focus on things like novel modes of action that will be critical in fighting resistance,” Heard says. “We can take a mode of action and use that target protein from that pest and screen a massive library to find new molecules.”
Less Time and Money
Their screening also looks for safety information and can quickly screen out candidates that likely won’t pass regulatory processes.
“We haven’t taken a product to market yet, but we anticipate time savings,” she says. “It takes about 13 years to bring a new crop protection product to market, and we think we can get that down to nine.”
Heard hopes to drop the price of bringing a new small molecule crop protection product to market from about $300 million to $130 million.
Bayer is company with deep roots in agriculture and pharmacy. With its acquisition of Monsanto, the company is expanding its research into crop protection chemicals.
“We’ve been applying a lot more data to the question of potential candidates or families of chemistries,” says Bob Reiter, Bayer head of research and development.
Smarter Starting Points
By using data analytics and artificial intelligence, Reiter says his team has smarter starting points. Also, Bayer scientists can share data between its pharmaceutical and ag businesses.
“With drug discovery you have to screen and quickly transition into some sort of clinical trialing to understand the overall safety of the product,” he says. “There are parallels in ag research.”
