FMC to acquire BioPhero

Abstract

The crop science company FMC is acquiring the pheromone producer BioPhero for $200 million. BioPhero is a Danish start-up that spun out of Irina Borodina’s lab at the Technical University of Denmark. It produces insect pheromones by fermenting biologically engineered yeast. Instead of killing pests, pheromones control them by making it harder for them to find a mate and reproduce. BioPhero says its fermentation process significantly reduces the cost of production compared with catalytic chemistry approaches. Pheromone products are currently used only in high-value crops. BioPhero and FMC hope that lower production costs will allow them to sell pheromones to the row-crop market. FMC estimates that pheromones are currently used on 2 million–3 million hectares of cultivated land; expanding to row crops could increase that to over 100 million ha. Mark Trimmer, who leads the biological research firm Dunham Trimmer, says fermentation is likely to cut the cost of input