AgBiome secures patent protection for new Connate biocontrol product line in the US

AgBiome^®, a leader in developing innovative products from the Earth’s microbial communities, announced a recent patent directed toward the Connate™ product line granted in the United States, further strengthening AgBiome’s IP Protection around novel product offerings.

Connate products, currently in development, have the same biological component such as Howler^® fungicide with the addition of a synthetic chemistry. Connate products aim to meet the grower demands for effective products while reducing the amount of chemical residues on the plant.

“Microbiomes hold the solutions to many problems facing agriculture and food production. AgBiome has addressed these issues by assembling an extensive, continuously growing microbial collection, data science infrastructure, and screening platform, GENESIS™, from which we discover and develop our innovative crop protection biological products,” Eric Ward, co-founder of AgBiome said. “This most recent patent toward the Connate product line reinforces AgBiome’s focus on harnessing the power of the plant microbiome to create new, efficacious products,” added Ward.

AgBiome’s patent estate provides protection throughout the depth of the AgBiome crop protection R&D pipeline. As the pipeline identifies novel bacterial strains that possess fungicidal, insecticidal, and/or nematicidal activity, AgBiome continues to file patent applications to protect these valuable assets. To date, AgBiome has 264 pending U.S. and international patent applications, with 28 issued or granted US or foreign patents.

Howler fungicide is an effective, EPA-approved biological fungicide and is the first commercial product to come out of the robust AgBiome crop protection pipeline. AgBiome is enjoying significant success pursuing patent protection on its commercial offerings, with 12 granted U.S. patents and six international patents protecting Howler fungicide and/or the Connate product line and additional patent applications pending.

GENESIS unlocks the potential of microbes in a systematic and targeted manner to identify the best candidates for advancement in their biological crop protection product pipelines. Key components of this platform include their robust laboratory screens, cutting-edge data science capabilities, and ever-expanding database of genomic sequences. Real-time integration of data throughout the platform provides immediate insight, allowing them to make data-driven decisions informed by genomic information and performance. With GENESIS, they are able to uncover novel biological activity and subsequently prioritize screening of related microbes within their collection, quickly pointing them to more potent product candidates. One US patent has been issued that covers aspects of the GENESIS platform.

Theia™ is AgBiome’s second fungicide product to be developed using the GENESIS platform and reach the regulatory approval stage. It is an exciting biological fungicide and expected to reach the market in 2021. Theia is a complementary biological fungicide to Howler. AgBiome continues to establish a strong patent estate to protect this next generation crop protection biological product. Currently, the Theia patent portfolio consists of 2 pending US cases and 18 pending international applications.