V ESTAR ON’ S T H IR D C H A P T E R
Leading the Biologics Revolution in AgChems BY ANNA RATH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, VESTARON
THE COMING REVOLUTION IN AGCHEMS Today’s AgChem industry is poised to undergo a similar revolution to the one that the pharmaceutical industry has undergone over the past few decades – namely a transition from small molecule synthetics to biologics. The advantage of small molecule synthetics is that they work as intended – they bind to their desired targets in known and reliable ways and, by extension, have a high-level of efficacy in achieving their purpose. The disadvantage is that they can sometimes also bind to other targets, creating unintended and occasionally harmful side effects. In the pharmaceutical industry, this can lead to negative health consequences. In agriculture, this can lead to environmental damage, and harm to beneficial insects, humans or other animals. These potential shortcomings led the pharmaceutical industry to broaden its focus to include larger, biologic molecules, namely proteins. These molecules offer the same level of dependable efficacy – binding to a particular target and affecting that target in a known and reliable manner – but with greater specificity and therefore fewer side-effects. Biologics now account for 7 of the top 9 pharmaceutical molecules by revenue, the growth rate of biopharma is double that of conventional, and the clinical success rate of biologics is more than twice that of small molecules. Despite there being small proteins – peptides – that have long been known to be effective against insects and other agricultural pests, the AgChem industry has not yet made this transition.
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THREE CRITICAL THINGS HAVE HINDERED THAT PROCESS – 1. How to get these molecules through an insect or other pest to their target receptor, 2. How to produce them at a scale and cost that would enable their use in agriculture, and 3. What the regulatory path would be for such molecules. With the launch of its first family of products based on the Spear® peptide, Vestaron has now successfully addressed all three.
CHAPTER ONE — DEVELOPING THE PLATFORM The first chapter of Vestaron’s life focused on building an R&D platform. Where many had tried and failed to turn these peptides into commercial agricultural pesticides, the Vestaron R&D team optimized the Spear® peptide for efficacy, stability and manufacturability. The team developed formulations that enabled the bioavailability of these peptides for insects, both topically and orally, and created a manufacturing process capable of scale and yield levels sufficient to enable profitability with prices competitive with leading synthetics. Vestaron then worked with the EPA to define a regulatory path for the first Spear® peptide, based on a path that had previously only been used for whole microbe solutions.
