Vestaron has earned global recognition for its work, including the inaugural 2015 Bernard Blum Award for novel biocontrol solutions, the prestigious Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute in 2020, as well as Best New Biologic Product in the 2021 Crop Science Awards. The company also received a Thrive Top 50 AgTech | FoodTech Award and a George Washington Carver Award in 2022.
Vestaron’s scientists are the first to pioneer a game-changing new strategy for crop protection. From a range of naturally occurring peptides with confirmed insecticidal properties, we select peptides that are potent against well-validated modes of insecticidal action and are not inherently cross-resistant from synthetic insecticides. We optimize our product formulations after a rigorous process that tests for efficacy and safety. We must also confirm the lack of activity against mammals and vertebrates in general. At that point, we insert the genes that encode for the peptide into a yeast strain as part of a fermentation production system. This yields the active ingredient for formulation into a bioinsecticide for use in fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, and other specialty crops.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Vestaron continues to improve a yeast production system that is ideal for making, folding and secreting cysteine-rich peptides. Cysteine forms crosslinks that stabilize peptides for use in an outdoor field environment. To perfectly balance the needs of crop protection with safeguards for the environment, these peptides remain effective for up to two weeks. Yet, they do not persist in the environment but break down into simple nutrients.
After fermentation, all yeast cells are removed from the broth and destroyed. The remaining material contains the Spear® peptide that is then concentrated and fortified with a preservative.
We develop our product formulations through a rigorous system of trialing to validate for comparable efficacy relative to conventional chemistries. The process includes laboratory studies, field-to-lab studies, small-plot field trials under controlled conditions, and finally large-scale grower trials to confirm performance under real-world conditions. Only after this trialing do we advance the products to commercialization. The results from several studies are displayed in the trial results section.
We have registered and released two formulations of Spear bioinsecticide in the U.S. The first, Spear-T®, was approved by the U.S. EPA in 2018. It is a concentrated liquid formulation designed for contact activity against of the four major pests in the greenhouse, thrips, spider mites, whiteflies, and aphids. The second, Spear LEP®, was approved in 2019. This product largely targets lepidopteran (caterpillar) pests in outdoor and indoor crops where a reduced rate of Spear is applied with a formulant (Bt) to achieve efficacy through ingestion. With our biological insecticides, you can rest assured that your crops are protected.
RESEARCH
Vestaron’s research program formed the company’s core for more than 12 years. Research productivity is a hallmark of our history. The research team is vertically integrated across all steps to introduce a new product, protein design, entomology, protein expression, and formulation. Vestaron was the first company to establish a regulatory path and register a cysteine-rich peptide for crop protection. Additionally, Vestaron has succeeded in scaling its fermentation manufacturing to 100,000 liters and has arrived at positive gross margins within one year of launch.
Vestaron currently sells products in the high-value crop protection markets. As Vestaron continues to make strides against the cost of manufacturing, the expectation is to develop and commercialize products for the commodity crop markets in the near future.
Finally, Vestaron’s research continues to pursue advances in the company’s proprietary yeast expression technology for producing cysteine-rich peptides. Through the use of fermentation manufacturing, Vestaron is effectively converting sugars, rather than fossil fuels, into groundbreaking crop protection products.
Sugars, unlike fossil fuels, are sustainable inputs…read more on our sustainable efforts here. If you would like to learn more about biological pesticides, get in touch with us today.
OUR SUSTAINABILITY COMMITMENT
As leaders in the evolution of agricultural environmental science, Vestaron is leading an innovative, sustainable, peptide-based revolution in crop protection. We provide powerful novel solutions for growers to overcome resistance without sacrificing performance or safety – emPOWERed™ by peptides for the sustainability of farms, farmers and the planet.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Vestaron’s foundation is clearly inspired by natural peptides which are optimized for use in crop protection in agriculture. The protein design and yeast expression technologies comprise the Peptide emPOWERed™ platform. This innovation will expand into cysteine-rich peptides that have bactericidal or fungicidal properties to exploit. Vestaron projects the launch of three new products each with novel IRAC Group codes over the next 5 years. With this unprecedented productivity and novel biopesticide chemistries, Vestaron will remake the industry and become the peptide company for crop protection.
FIELD DEVELOPMENT
Vestaron takes pride in hiring the best people in all areas to support the research, innovation, and the potential of our products for farms, farmers, and the planet. Our field development team brings outstanding experience and qualifications, as well as the relationships to continue the testing and trial situations required for validation of safety and efficacy of current and future peptide-based insecticides. We are committed to better understanding the use of bioinsecticides in farming practices.
225+
Trials in 2022
18+
# States trials in
50+
Cooperative Trials
with Universities in 2022
Recognitions
