News Life Sciences Vestaron poised for growth, hires new CEO
Vestaron poised for growth, hires new CEO
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By Nathan Peck | LabWork
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Catherine Foune, research associate at Vestaron Corporation, monitors the fermentation of yeast used to manufacture the company’s biologically based pesticide. PHOTO: NATHAN PECK
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KALAMAZOO — A Kalamazoo-based startup is taking its green pesticides from the bench to the field.
Vestaron Corp. is moving forward with field trials on its first generation of insecticides using natural peptides from spiders. The company is scaling up production of its insecticides, increasing batches from 2 liters in its lab to 750 liters, and has hired Steven Hartmeier as its new President and CEO.
Vestaron chairman John Sorenson sat down with LabWork to discuss his company’s growth and his shift from interim CEO toward a supporting role.
“Steve’s experience with taking start-up companies through the product commercialization process is just what Vestaron needs at this stage of its development,” Sorenson said in a statement. “In particular, his experience with biorational pest control products will be critical as we launch our CleanTech pest control products. His track record in successfully taking small companies and turning them into large ones is exceptional.”
Hartmeier brings to Vestaron some 30 years of agricultural experience with large companies such as Monsanto as well as small start-up companies.
“The future opportunity with Vestaron’ s technology is phenomenal,” Hartmeier said. “The novel mode of action combined with its Green Product profile makes this technology a potential game changer in modern agriculture.”
Clearing regulatory hurdles
Vestaron developed a pesticide based on peptides derived from spider venom that targets insects specifically and is harmless to humans and other animals. Early toxicology tests on rats have borne out its nontoxicity to animals.
The company cleared a significant hurdle in its product development cycle with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency registering its first pesticides under its Biopesticide Pollution Protection Division, allowing it to register under less stringent toxicology and risk assessment protocols, cutting a process that might take five to seven years down to 18 months or less.
“I am optimistic that we will introduce the product and have our first sales in 2014,” Sorenson explained. “The EPA regulatory status will allow a speedier review of our data.”
The company recently conducted field tests of its pesticides on test crops of tomatoes in California. The first test has shown that it is effective, now the firm is working to fine-tune the application and concentrations in a subsequent 18 trials.
“We are beginning to get our first data and are pleased with our results,” Sorenson said.
Vestaron’s novel approach comes at a fortunate time as the largest agricultural chemical and seed companies struggle with the problem of pests developing resistance to many of the products currently on the market. Part of the problem with current chemical pesticides is insects have developed resistance to many insecticides because the chemicals target just four metabolic systems in the pests.
Other GMO crops, such as strains of corn modified to express the bacterial Bt toxin, are finding that pests are developing resistance to the toxin as farmers had overplanted the GMO strains in the hopes of attaining higher yields.
Scaling up
Vestaron has shifted production of pilot scale runs of 750 liters from a lab at the University of Georgia to the Michigan State University Bioeconomy Institute in Holland. The MSU facility was originally part of the 46-acre pharmaceutical campus donated by Pfizer Inc. with 37,000 liters of chemical reactor capacity and centralized automatic controls and lab space for researchers. Vestaron was one of five companies that won Lakeshore Advantage’s Scale Up Michigan! competition that will help provide support to bring their new products to market at the institute.
Vestaron uses genetically modified yeast to produce the peptides used for the pesticide and Sorenson is confident that scaling up from 750 liters to 10,000-liter runs will be successful.
“The same yields are expected,” he said. “If something is going to go wrong, it is during the move from the lab to pilot scale.”
Funding new development
The company is looking to develop a second generation of pesticides based upon chemical components modeled on the active sites of the peptides. Synthetic chemicals would go through the traditional EPA pesticide registration, but the upside is that by cutting the yeast fermentation out of the process it would reduce the costs to the point where it could be used on row crops.
Other initiatives include developing GMO crops that express the peptides in the plant, but are capital intensive and will likely require the company to license its intellectual property to seed companies who could develop the crops and bring them to market.
“Longer term, these things burn up a lot of cash trying to develop products for row crops, which is why we focused on tree fruits and other high value and low acreage crops,” Sorenson said.
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health awarded the company a $1.4 million, 3-year grant to develop insecticides to control the spread of malaria by mosquitoes. Venture capital firms are showing interest in Vestaron, with Open Prairie Ventures investing to help bring the first pesticides to market. The company is in the midst of a round of fundraising to bring its product to the commercialization phase, and Sorenson anticipates another round prior to coming to market.
“Fundraising for agriculture has been difficult, but over the last four or five years venture capital firms are adding ag components to their portfolios,” Sorenson said. “We are at a good point, we are a fairly advanced company with products that are a couple of years away from market.” LW
