River Bioscience and OroAgri sign distribution and development agreement for novel NPV baculovirus bio-protection product

River Bioscience, based in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and Oro Agri, a Rovensa company based in Lisbon, Portugal, signs an agreement for the development and exclusive distribution of River Bioscience patented NPV product, effective against economically important tortricids, including codling moth and oriental fruit moth.

As part of the agreement, starting in Europe, River Bioscience will be the notifier of the active substance authorization in Europe and Oro Agri will be responsible for the efficacy studies, implementation, and registration of the formulated product in Europe. For now, the framework agreement covers exclusive distribution in Europe, with a potential to expand to USA, South America and various countries outside Sub-Saharan Africa.

Cryptophlebia peltastica nucleopolyhedrovirus (CrpeNPV) is a proprietary patented product developed and produced by River Bioscience for effective control of tortricid pests including Cydia pomonella (Codling moth) on Pome fruits and walnuts; and Grapholita molesta (Oriental Fruit Moth) in Stone fruits. The codling moth is a serious and extremely destructive pest in apples and pears in almost every country where the fruits are grown. This pest can cause complete destruction of pome fruits if left unchecked and may result in up to 80%–100% fruit damage. Apart from pome fruit, it is also a pest of walnut, quince, and other stone fruits where it causes severe economic losses.

The CrpeNPV overcomes all known types of resistance of codling moth, resulting from CpGv based insecticides, which represents an ideal fit for resistance management programmes with other sustainable crop protection inputs.

Oro Agri has been working with the development of the patented CrpeNPV baculovirus for the past 2-3 years and found it to be the right tool to supplement its current IPM solutions. The first registration will be introduced in Europe with a low-risk biological profile expected and will be used as a competing or alternate strategy to the CpGV products currently being used in the market. Alternating strain strategies will assist in combatting resistance concerns and ensure consistent efficacy.

Agreements between USA and S. America and various other countries outside Sub-Saharan Africa will follow shortly.

Eric van Innis, CEO of Rovensa said, ″This agreement with RIVER BIOSCIENCE and Oro Agri substantiates ROVENSA’s commitment to feeding the planet through sustainable agricultural inputs for a well-balanced agricultural system. With the addition of CrpeNPV, we supplement our existing portfolio and provide a program approach to solve grower pest problems.″

Rob Elfick, MD at RIVER BIOSCIENCE, said: ″The agreement with ORO AGRI and further collaborations with ROVENSA creates a fantastic platform to launch River Bioscience as a major player in the baculovirus market. It also illustrates that African-based companies can play a major role in contributing to global agricultural sustainability and assisting the EU with meeting their sustainability targets whilst managing resistance.″

The 4th Biopesticides, Biostimulants and Novel Fertilizers International Summit (BioEx 2023) will take place on 9th & 10th March in Hangzhou, China. We are pleased to invite speakers from the commercial, research, extension, government, regulatory and farming sectors to submit your proposals and abstracts for oral presentations.