Cost Of New Agrochemical Product Discovery Has Doubled Since 2000, Now $300 Million

AgbioInvestor recently announced the publication of its latest report, The Cost of New Agrochemical Product Discovery Development and Registration. This is a free-to-access report that summarises the latest black box study conducted by AgbioInvestor on behalf of CropLife International and its members, in which participants provided information on the comparative costs involved in the discovery, development and registration of a new conventional chemical crop protection active ingredient in the 2014-2019 period.

The report can be downloaded from AgbioInvestor [https://agbioinvestor.com/new-agrochemical-product-study/] or CropLife International [https://croplife.org/our-work/ensuring-regulatory-integrity/regulatory-integrity-in-crop-protection/].

Key Findings of the Study:

The results of the study show that the average cost of the discovery, development and registration of a new conventional chemical crop protection active ingredient increased by 5.7% to $301 million in the 2014-2019 timeframe compared to 2010-2014. A detailed breakdown of each stage is available in the report. Similarly, the average time required to facilitate this process increased by 1 year to total 12.3 years. The study also details the breakdown of R&D budget; CODEX MRL costs; and re-registration costs.

The development phase, the most expensive part of the overall process at $133.1 million, accounted for 51.0% of the total process. This represents a decline of 8.5% from the prior timeframe; however, these lower costs in the development phase were more than offset by greater expenditure in the research and registration phases. Research expenditure increased by 18.9% to reach $126.6 million, representing 42.0% (37.3%) of the total process. The expenditure needed to complete the registration process increased by the greatest rate, rising by 25.9% to $41.8 million, representing 13.9% (1.6%) of the total process.

Survey Methodology:

To determine the relative cost and duration of this process, AgbioInvestor conducted a black box survey that was participated in by BASF Agricultural Solutions, Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, FMC, and Syngenta.

The April 2023 survey entitled, "Black Box Study on the Cost Necessary to Develop a Novel Crop Protection Product" focused on the time and costs associated with discovering a new crop protection active ingredient and the subsequent process of product development through to product registration.

The data collected was anonymised and averaged to demonstrate the current situation according to four main categories:

• Cost of each part of the discovery, development, and authorisation process
• Time involved to bring a new active ingredient to the market
• The cost of CODEX MRLs
• Re-registration Costs

GM Traits

The publication of this report follows the launch of a similar AgbioInvestor publication in 2022 that detailed the time and cost to develop a new GM trait. Key findings in that report were that the cost of discovery, development, and authorization of a new GM trait declined by $21 million over the past 10 years. However, more importantly, the time to get these new innovations to market has increased from 13.1 years to 16.5 years.

The Time and Cost to Develop a New GM trait report may be downloaded from AgbioInvestor's GM Monitor website [https://gm.agbioinvestor.com/gm-trait-study] or CropLife International [https://croplife.org/our-work/ensuring-regulatory-integrity/regulatory-integrity-in-plant-biotechnology/].