The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that pesticides are responsible for over 5 million cases of poisoning each year, of which 20,000 are lethal.
The Belgian biotech, Aphea.Bio, fresh from a €9M funding is planning to replace these Pesticides and Insecticides with something more biological and safe- microorganisms. The company that raised €7.7M in a Series A round led by V-Bio Ventures in addition to a €1.3M grant from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) has now come up with genetically encoded proteins to develop biopesticides and bioinsecticides as replacements for traditional ones in order to overcome the accumulation of toxins in the soil.
This initiative stems from the fact that these alternatives in the past, have proven to be often less toxic than conventional pesticides, and also found to target pests specifically without affecting other organisms and decompose faster.
Aphea.Bio additionally is planning to tap into biostimulants, to provide an alternative to fertilizers to increase yields by improving nutrient and water assimilation as well as increasing tolerance to stress.
The organization seems anxious to go after highly profitable markets at such an early stage, given both the biopesticide market as well as the biostimulant market which are- expected to go from €3Bn in 2016 to close to €8Bn by 2022 and
reach €2.6Bn by 2021 respectively.