Sep 30, 2021

Patrick McDonnell added as chief business officer for Biotalys

Biotalys, an agtech company focused on addressing food protection challenges to enable a more sustainable and safer food supply, announced Sept. 30 the appointment of Patrick McDonnell as chief business officer, effective Oct. 4,.

McDonnell will be based in Biotalys’ offices in Research Triangle Park (RTP), the heart of U.S. agtech activities, in North Carolina.

McDonnell joins the company from BASF, where he worked as Global Lead Business Development for Agricultural Products. He brings more than 30 years of experience in sourcing and implementing innovative solutions to agriculture, within various legacy companies of BASF, Bayer and Syngenta. He is an expert in go-to-market strategies and has launched many fungicides, insecticides and herbicides in different sales and marketing roles.

Over time, McDonnell has developed an expertise in biosolutions for greenhouses, in crops as diverse as mushrooms and citrus. Recently, he has been pioneering digital solutions in the global pest control industry, one of the key innovations aimed at helping growers to apply more targeted crop protection products to make agriculture more sustainable.

Previously, McDonnell set up his own plant nursery business where he established strong relations with growers and suppliers and experienced first hand what the needs of the agricultural community are to protect their crops against pests and diseases.

McDonnell studied at John Carroll University, Cleveland, Ohio, where he received a Degree in Biology and Chemistry.

“It is a great pleasure to welcome Patrick in as our new Chief Business Officer. His extensive experience in business development and innovative agricultural solutions will be invaluable as we look to further leverage the potential of our proprietary Agrobody foundry platform,” Patrice Sellès, chief executive officer at Biotalys, said in a news release. “We look forward to Patrick leading our business development and go-to-market initiatives that will contribute to our future growth.”

“Following its successful listing earlier this year on Euronext Brussels, Biotalys has kept a clear focus on its strategy to achieve sustainable options for food protection that may potentially be used across the entire food supply chain,” McDonnell said. “I very much look forward to working closely with the team to support the development of much needed biological solutions for the future of food protection.”

Based on its Agrobody technology platform, Biotalys has developed a pipeline of product candidates with a favorable safety profile that aim to address key crop pests and diseases across the whole value chain, from soil to plate.

Biotalys was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and is listed on Euronext Brussels since July 2021.

The company is based in the biotech cluster in Ghent, Belgium. More information can be found here.