AgroPages-Pangaea Biosciences Ltd. – Advancing Sustainable Agriculture-Agricultural news

Pangaea Biosciences Ltd., led by CEO and founder Nick Gooch, is on a mission to revolutionise agriculture with innovative, sustainable crop protection technologies. The company’s portfolio of patented solutions aims to reduce chemical usage, combat pest and pathogen resistance, and lower environmental and human health risks—all while preserving crop efficacy.

Pangaea has developed two platform technologies leading to a portfolio of patented products.

The first incorporates technology to overcome insecticide, herbicide, and fungicide resistance,
The second aims to minimize harmful surfactants with plant-based materials or replace them entirely.

A Growing Threat: Resistance in Agriculture

Resistance is the ″inheritable change in the sensitivity of a pest population that is reflected in the repeated failure of a product to achieve the expected level of control when used according to the label recommendation.″ With climate change increasing pressure on global food systems and food security, resistance among pests, weeds, and diseases has become one of agriculture’s biggest threats in agriculture and horticulture. As traditional crop protection products lose effectiveness, growers are forced to spray more frequently, escalating costs, resistance, and environmental harm. Meanwhile, the toolbox of effective products is shrinking year by year.

Pangaea Booster™: A Breakthrough in Resistance Management

To address this, Pangaea Biosciences has developed an effective new tool, Pangaea Booster™, an optimised and patented primer formulation, originally derived from a naturally occurring essential oil. which can overcome resistance, when applied with pesticides.

Booster™ places the target organisms (e.g., insects) in a hypersensitive state, restoring the effectiveness of actives that may have lost potency due to resistance.

At the core of Pangaea Booster™’s effectiveness is its ability to deactivate the cytochrome P450 metabolic pathway which causes the breakdown of the pesticide —the key resistance mechanism in most pest species. Deactivating cytochrome P450 leaves the target pest in a hypersensitive state. This rejuvenates older chemistries that farmers can no longer rely on, providing a powerful, sustainable tool for crop protection.

Proven Results in the Field

Pangaea Booster™ is already making an impact in trials all over the world, as well as in commercial use across Europe. In European trials, Booster™ restored efficacy against pollen beetle (Meligethes aeneus) to pyrethroid insecticides. This is a major pest in oilseed rape—where resistance to pyrethroids exceeds 60% within Europe and up to 80% in countries like Poland and Lithuania.

In German trials (2022), lambda-cyhalothrin alone provided 36% control of pollen beetle. When tank-mixed with Pangaea Booster™, control rose to 85%., increased by 49%.
Cypermethrin performance improved from 58% to 85%, an uplift of 27% with Booster™.

This result highlights Pangaea Booster™’s ability to reverse resistance and restore effectiveness, without increasing chemical volumes.

Pollen Beetle Control – IOR / Poland with and without Booster

In addition to Pollen beetle, Pangaea has also been working on the control of resistant colorado beetle, red spider mite, diamond back moth, whitefly and many other insect’ species.

The ability to restore a range of chemistries which have. started to fail in the market through resistance problems should have enormous appeal to farmers all over the world.

Pangaea Booster is registered and available in Poland, the Baltic, Romania, Czech Republic, Denmark, the UK, and Indonesia.

Registrations are also proceeding in other parts of Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.

Tardis™: A Smarter Delivery System

Increases rainfastness
Slows drying time of crop protection products on the surface of the pest or plant
Prolongs absorption time

Importantly, Tardis™ enables simultaneous application of Pangaea Booster™ and pesticides in a single tank mix. Its plant-based, food-safe ingredients make it significantly safer for soils, water sources, and human health.

Tardis is novel and environmentally friendly. When combined with Booster ™and a crop protection product in tank mix, Tardis will delay the absorption of the partner crop protection product, allowing Booster to control the resistance mechanism in the organism so that efficacy to the chemical is restored. If the insecticide or herbicide is sprayed too soon, Booster will not have time to deactivate the resistance.

A patent is pending for this breakthrough formulation and delivery system. Pangaea owns the licence to the patent filed by Rothamsted Research in the UK, covering the time delay between application of Pangaea Booster™ and the partner pesticide, known as temporal synergism.

Plant-Based Surfactants: Reducing Chemical Load

Pangaea is also leading the way in low-to-zero surfactant formulations—helping reduce soil toxicity, chemical run-off, and carbon emissions. Many governments worldwide are already driving farmers towards reducing their chemical use on farm. Many conventional crop protection products contain harmful surfactants that can damage soil health.

Pangaea’s patented formulations reduce these surfactants by up to 75% or replaces them entirely with plant-derived pectin’s and alginates, whilst still maintaining good results in the field and with no loss of efficacy.

Approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, these biobased surfactants allow controlled time-release of active ingredients for optimized efficacy and safety.

These unique formulations have been patented in more than 65 different countries to date.

Nick Gooch, CEO and founder of Pangaea Biosciences, presented their patented product and technology at 5th Ag Formulation & Application Technology Congress (FAT 2024)

Case Study: Glyphosate Reimagined

Glyphosate is a total weed killer and the world’s most widely used herbicide in agriculture. Pangaea has developed a novel 360g/L formulation featuring Tardis™ technology.

In hundreds of trials in many different countries, Pangaea has demonstrated:

Equivalent or improved control at 50–75% of conventional glyphosate rates
Faster activity, better rainfastness
Less weed regrowth
Improved uptake and stickability, even on resistant weed species

Tank mixing with Pangaea Booster™ further enhances performance on resistant targets.

Lab trials of Pangaea Booster™ on weeds

Global Momentum: Strategic Expansion into China

At the International Agrochemical & Crop Protection Exhibition (CAC) in China, Nick Gooch of Pangaea and Mr Taylor Liu, signed a Heads of Agreement with Chongqing Shining Fine Chemicals Co., appointing them as master distributor for the Chinese market.

The partnership marks a major step in Pangaea’s global expansion and brings its sustainable solutions to one of the world’s largest and diverse agricultural markets.

The Road Ahead

Pangaea is now building a pipeline of crop protection products that integrate its patented delivery and adjuvant technologies. These include herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides combined with the pectin-alginate matrix, replacing harmful surfactants with plant-based surfactants and compatible with Pangaea Booster™ for resistance management. This new technology should be hitting the market in the next few months.

″This is the positive way forward,″ says Nick Gooch. ″Pangaea Booster™ and Tardis™ are helping to feed the world more sustainably; restoring the power of existing chemistries, reducing chemical use, and lowering the environmental footprint of modern agriculture.″