Vestaron submits another new AI for high-value crops

Vestaron, a company that produces peptide-based products for crop protection, is bringing a new active ingredient for pest control to high-value field crops.

With this innovation, Vestaron continues to empower growers with novel, effective chemistries that address proven targets using peptides to overcome existing resistance issues while offering a desired safety profile for workers, bees, beneficials and the environment.

In 2019, Vestaron introduced growers to the Spear product line, offering the first unique mode of action in more than eight years, acquiring a new Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC) Group number 32.

On March 15, 2021, Vestaron submitted its next product family, Basin, to the EPA, fulfilling the promise of continued new and novel solutions for growers. Like Spear, Basin is active on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) at yet another new site, allowing it to be added to integrated pest management programs to fight insects and resistance.

“The submission of BASIN not only ensures an additional tool for growers in the continued struggle against resistance,” Ben Cicora, VP sales and marketing, said in a news release. “It validates the pipeline and promise Vestaron has been making to the market to provide innovative chemistry that delivers an exceptional environmental profile and a robust new solution growers can count on.”

As with Spear, based on similar study results, Basin should offer a short re-entry interval, a zero-day pre-harvest interval and will be maximum residue limit (MRL) exempt. Basin will be an alternative to other synthetic chemistries for use in fruit, nuts and other high-value field crops targeting lepidopteran pests. Basin continues to impress with field data results equal to Spear and other synthetic insecticides.

“This second product on its way to the market proves that SPEAR was not an aberration,” said Anna Rath, CEO of Vestaron. “Vestaron is capable of reliably and consistently delivering novel AIs targeting the most important, most valuable, proven receptors in insecticidal chemistry with safe, environmentally friendly peptides that deliver on our promises. Our pipeline is deep, and we are confident that our products will be the solutions growers need to initially strengthen and ultimately completely evolve their IPM strategies for years to come.”

Vestaron is a company dedicated to improving the safety, efficacy and sustainability of crop protection through migration from synthetic pesticides to peptide-based biopesticides.  Vestaron is initially focused on a class of peptides that kill insect pests efficiently, but are practically safe for humans, beneficial insects and the environment. As part of this, the company has developed an empowered proprietary platform for peptide optimization, fermentation-based peptide production and in planta expression that will allow it to develop a wide variety of biologic crop protection and trait solutions.

Vestaron’s Spear was the winner of both the inaugural 2015 Bernard Blum Award and the 2020 EPA Green Chemistry Award for novel biocontrol solutions. Additionally, Spear was included on the short list for the 2020 Agrow’s Crop Science award for best biological.

More information is available here.