Apr 6, 2017

Marrone Bio advances novel bacteria into development stage

Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI) will advance certain novel bacteria and Evogene-identified related proteins into MBI’s bioinsecticide product development pipeline under their previously announced multi-year collaboration for the discovery and development of novel insect control solutions.

According to MarketsandMarkets, the bioinsecticides market was estimated to be valued at $1.2 billion in 2015. It is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.3 percent from 2016 to 2021, reaching $3.2 billion by 2021. However, MBI also expects to access the larger chemical insecticide market, valued at $14 billion in 2014, according to Jefferies. MBI has historically brought new biopesticides to the market in approximately three to five years or less. The target pests related to MBI’s potential new product include the caterpillar (lepidopteran) and sucking bug (hemipteran/homopteran) species.

The collaboration, initiated in July 2014, and supported by funding from the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, aims to bring to market new insect control solutions – both seed traits and bio-insecticides – through leveraging the expertise and distinct assets and capabilities of each party. The parties have agreed to share revenues from any products that may result from this collaboration.

Utilizing its proprietary computational platform BiomeMiner and other predictive discovery capabilities, Evogene identified candidate proteins from proteins within selected insecticidal strains from MBI’s extensive and proprietary bacterial collection. The proteins’ bioactivity for pest control was then validated in insect assays, with the result that a subset of the candidate proteins demonstrated positive insecticidal results.

The advancement represents the completion of the collaboration’s discovery phase and a shift by the companies towards product development. The bacteria that were selected to advance into MBI’s pipeline contain candidate proteins with positive insecticidal properties, while in parallel Evogene continues its product development efforts to develop seed trait solutions based on such proteins, according to a press release.

For more information, visit www.marronebioinnovations.com or www.evogene.com.