Moa and Biomar announce bio-herbicide collaboration

Moa has boosted its bio-herbicide research and development programme with a new long-term collaboration agreement with Biomar Microbial Technologies.

The new collaboration gives Moa access to Biomar’s extensive library of natural marine compounds for the discovery of new herbicides.   Moa is screening the compounds with its proprietary GALAXY platform, seeking those with the potential to help farmers protect their harvests from herbicide-resistant weeds.

″Biomar’s collaboration partnership with Moa is an important addition to our cutting-edge capabilities,″ says Virginia Corless, CEO of Moa Technology.  ″We believe that the ocean biome is an area of great potential for herbicide discovery, with millions of diverse and unique natural compounds that could help us deliver greater food security on land″.

The $5 billion biopesticide market is growing at around 8% a year, according to industry estimates, as farmers urgently seek better ways to tackle weeds which have become resistant to conventional methods.  Fast-growing herbicide-resistant weeds, such as pigweed, mare’s tail and water hemp, can reduce crop yields by over 50%, threatening staple food supplies for millions of people around the world.

Spun out of the University of Oxford in 2017 to develop new and more sustainable ways to help ensure global food security, Moa today employs over 80 people and is backed by leading agritech and life sciences venture capital firms. Alongside its proprietary biotechnology platforms which work to identify herbicides with novel modes of action (MOAs), Moa deploys state-of-the-art AI/machine learning and operates its own world-class glasshouse testing facilities. Moa already has a diverse pipeline of new herbicides – both biological and synthetic – some of which it is developing on its own, and some with industry partners, such as the recently announced agreement with Nufarm.

Xavier Jacq, Chief Scientific Officer, commented,

″Biomar has a tremendous expertise and longstanding experience in natural product identification and production. The Biomar team is highly competent and with a strong scientific background″.

Antonio Fernandez CEO of Biomar, remarked,

″Our collection of marine natural compounds harvested since the establishment of the company in 1996 is an unparalleled source of chemical diversity, and we believe that the partnership with Moa will allow Biomar to explore the potential of the collection in this exciting new application.

″This collaboration supports Biomar’s strategic vision to promote innovation and sustainability″.

″We are delighted to be working with Moa in order to explore exciting opportunities in this area″.