Biotalys achieves significant progress for Evoca

Ghent, BELGIUM –  Biotalys, an Agricultural Technology (AgTech) company protecting crops and food with protein-based biocontrol solutions, today announced significant progress in its manufacturing capabilities for its first biocontrol product, Evoca™*.Biotalys’ scientists have developed multiple proprietary yeast strains increasing the production efficiency of the bioactive ingredient of Evoca by 50 to 70% in only one year, outperforming the internal targets set by the company. This achievement further strengthens the prospects of a successful path to market for the company’s pipeline of safer, more sustainable biocontrol products. 

Luc Maertens, COO of Biotalys, said: “Achieving this production efficiency milestone is a crucial step forward to deliver on Biotalys’ ambition to bring effective and safe biocontrol solutions to growers worldwide at competitive cost while generating commercial value for the company. We are proud of our R&D teams, who have outperformed their goals. We will build on this achievement to further strategically expand our IP portfolio, develop Evoca and our pipeline of biocontrols produced through fermentation to replace chemical pesticides based on fossil fuels.”

Evoca is a novel biofungicide based on proteins and developed from Biotalys’ technology platform, the AGROBODY Foundry™. The product helps control fungal diseases such as Botrytis and Powdery Mildew in strawberries, grapes and other high-value fruits and vegetables. Evoca has demonstrated strong performance across more than 600 independent and company-driven field and greenhouse trialsacross multiple regions, climates, soil types, production types, pathogen pressure and crops. 

Protein-based biocontrols such as Evoca are produced via fermentation in simple micro-organisms such as yeast. In past years, Biotalys had already made significant progress in its capabilities for yeast based production. By additionally increasing the production efficiency by 50 to 70% in only one year, Biotalys is drastically reducing production costs, paving the way to bring the product and its pipeline of product candidates to the market in an economically viable manner to the benefit of growers, consumers and the environment. In addition, Biotalys is leveraging this significant improvement in the production ofAGROBODY™ bioactives to expand its intellectual property portfolio.

Subject to regulatory approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Evoca will first be distributed in selected states in the United States by Biotalys’ partner Biobest as a product for market calibration, while a commercial version is expected for 2026.

* Evoca™: Pending Registration. This product is not currently registered for sale or use in the United States, the European Union, or elsewhere and is not being offered for sale.

About Biotalys

Biotalys is an Agricultural Technology (AgTech) company protecting crops and food with proprietary protein-based biocontrol solutions and aiming to provide alternatives to conventional chemical pesticides for a more sustainable and safer food supply. Based on its novel AGROBODY™ technology platform, Biotalys is developing a strong and diverse pipeline of effective product candidates with a favorable safety profile that aim to address key crop pests and diseases across the whole value chain, from soil to plate. Biotalys was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and has been listed on Euronext Brussels since July 2021. The company is based in the biotech cluster in Ghent, Belgium. More information can be found on www.biotalys.com.

Photo credit: Biotalys

Source: