Key Takeaways
- Strategic Partnership: Moa Technology and NAICONS collaborate to screen 70,000 micro-bacterial extracts for potential biological herbicides.
- Growing Resistance Challenge: Over 273 weed species are now resistant to existing herbicides, driving the urgency for new solutions.
- High-Throughput Screening: Moa’s proprietary platform will identify safe and effective compounds from NAICONS’ natural product library.
- Commercial Potential: Moa gains exclusive development rights, with plans to share future licensing and commercialization value with NAICONS.
- Global Impact: Herbicide-resistant weeds result in billions of dollars in crop losses annually in the U.S., Australia, and the UK.
Moa Technology’s Partnership With NAICONS: Focus on Sustainable Weed Control
Oxford-based agricultural biotech firm Moa Technology has announced a partnership with Italian natural products company NAICONS to enhance the global search for a safe, effective, and affordable biological herbicide. This partnership leverages Moa’s advanced high-throughput screening platform to evaluate 70,000 micro-bacterial extracts from NAICONS’ microbial natural product library.
The goal is to identify biological compounds that can serve as new herbicides or improve existing ones by increasing efficacy, safety, or resistance-breaking capability—all while maintaining environmental and human safety standards.
Rising Costs of Herbicide Resistance
The collaboration comes at a time when herbicide resistance has become a significant global concern. More than 273 weed species have developed resistance to one or more commercially available herbicides. In economic terms, weed-related crop losses exceed $11 billion annually in the United States, $3.3 billion in Australia, and approximately $500 million in the UK due to herbicide-resistant blackgrass.
Moa Technology has previously screened nearly 800,000 synthetic and naturally-derived compounds through its proprietary platform. This work has resulted in the identification of over 70 herbicide candidates with potentially novel modes of action. Three of Moa’s synthetic herbicide leads have already shown strong performance in early international field trials.
Details of the Agreement With Moa Technology
Under the new agreement, Moa will have exclusive development rights to any herbicides discovered through the screening of NAICONS’ library. The partnership includes a revenue-sharing model tied to future licensing and commercialization outcomes.
Dr. Virginia Corless, CEO of Moa Technology, stated: “Our discovery platform is very well suited to screen natural product libraries, as it provides a reliable and early indication when a compound is too weak or too toxic to become a commercially viable herbicide. We are looking forward to applying our screening technology to NAICONS’ high-quality library of actinomycete bacteria to see if we can find a biological compound that can help farmers control weeds effectively and sustainably.”
Stefano Donadio, CEO of NAICONS, commented: “We are very excited about this collaboration. Our library has never been screened for herbicides and we are confident promising lead molecules will be rapidly identified through our powerful micro4all platform. Over 150,000 different molecules have been identified in the extracts sent to Moa and our team is eager to help in identifying the most promising herbicide candidates.”
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