CONTENTS
WHY GLOBAL HEALTH?
It’s taken a bit to get our first newsletter to you, and here’s why: we’ve been completely captivated by all the possibilities of Novochizol™ technology. So many different applications, seemingly nothing in common… yet, we felt they had to share an underlying vision, a single roadmap through a vast industrial landscape.
We think we’ve nailed it: our destination is global health – the well-being of everything from humans, animals, and plants to microbial communities and entire ecosystems.
Contributing to global health is ambitious, a real dream. But we’re certainly not alone. More and more like-minded companies, research institutions, and forward-thinking people like you are joining us as partners.
Together we can transform the dream into practical solutions.
In this first newsletter, we’re focusing on where global health truly begins: right in our plates.
AGRINOVO: A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN DAVID AND GOLIATH
Imagine David and Goliath from the biblical narrative, not as adversaries, but as best friends. Two distant brothers, committed to a common journey, joining forces with complementary strengths for the benefit of humanity.
This is the extraordinary story we have embarked on just over a month ago, code-named AgrINovo.
In AgrInovo, “David” is us – a startup in a small country with about 400,000 hectares of arable land, barely enough to feed half of its 10 million people. And like in the biblical myth, “Goliath” is very much the opposite: a company, backed up by the world’s largest farmers’ cooperative in the most populous country on earth, having an agriculture production system capable of feeding 1.5 billion souls. Our ‘Goliath’ is Aquagri, an Indian company that pioneered seaweed cultivation and processing, and its partners. They’re backed by the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative (IFFCO), the world’s largest farmers’ organization, with the welfare of farmers truly at its heart.
Red Algae grown on the easter coat of Southern India, the starting material for Aquagri products. (Abhiram Seth, Managing Director Aquagri; Vanya Loroch, CEO Novochizol; Guy Blache, Head R&D Agro, Novochizol, and Aquagri staff)
First Novochizol formulation made in India, held by Abhiram Seth, Managing Director Aquagri.
This is a game changer for us in many ways:
– Large scale R&D. Our collaboration gives us the capacity for large-scale R&D, allowing us to formulate and test a huge number of agricultural actives with Novochizol, from chemical and biological pesticides to biostimulants and fertilizers. This enhanced delivery of nutrients means higher efficacy, chemical pesticide dose reduction, and protection for biopesticides against degradation, offering sustained release. It’s a real opportunity to develop new products for more efficient, healthier agriculture.
– We’re also pursuing a global vision. Promising candidates will be evaluated across various crops in both India and Switzerland, aiming to create products that benefit crops across diverse geographical and socio-economic landscapes.
– One ton of Novochizol a day ! AgrINovo is poised to establish Novochizol manufacturing capacity at a scale and cost unimaginable in Switzerland. This becomes possible in India thanks to the backing of Aquagri and their associates, who already have a chitosan production facility – the key raw material for Novochizol. Plus, capacity can be significantly boosted by leveraging waste streams from the large shrimp processing industry.
– This is more than just a commercial project. AgrINovo is being implemented under the recently ratified Indo-Swiss Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA). Our project is on the radar of both Indian and Swiss government officials, who see it as a prime example of the synergies that can develop between Swiss companies with advanced technologies and Indian partners capable of scaling these innovations to positively impact humanity as a whole.
Where will AgrINovo take us? Only time will tell. But it’s clearly a major step toward realizing Novochizol’s full potential in plant protection. It’s a story where David and Goliath are on a mission together for healthier agriculture. Speaking of warriors, their armor is often copper-based, which brings us to our next big news…
A NEW LEASE FOR AN ANCIENT FUNGICIDE, AT A LOWER DOSE
Proving a new plant protection product works is a laborious, lengthy, and expensive undertaking. It’s never been easy – not even with the Bordeaux mixture, the very first scientifically developed fungicide in year 1885. Its inventor, Alexis Millardet, spent three years on rigorous formulation experiments and field trials. But it was well worth it: his copper sulfate lime mixture saved the European wine industry from American downy mildew and revolutionized agriculture worldwide.
Today, about 200,000 tons of copper metal are released into the environment globally each year. Copper accumulation in soil threatens to reach toxic levels, which is clearly unsustainable. So it’s no surprise that reducing copper doses is a hot topic among many agro startups. The race is on, and we’re definitely in it!
It might be a coincidence, but after three years of independent trials – the same amount of time it took to develop the Bordeaux mixture – the results are in:
Multiple independent trials show that Novochizol makes it possible to reduce copper doses by at least 50% compared to standard commercial plant protection products.
Plenty of work remains, of course: optimizing Novochizol formulations for even higher dose reductions, defining the best use cases, getting product registrations, and choosing the right partners.
The race is on… and we are certainly not behind !
A CO-FORMULANT FOR BREAKTHROUGH COMBINATIONS
Dreaming of a planet that could feed 10 billion people without any chemical pesticides or fertilizers?
You are not the only one. We would all prefer to eat pesticide-free food.
Some might say the political will isn’t there, or that big business lobbies are maintaining the status quo. The reality, though, is more complex. A country twice Switzerland’s size tried to make the organic agriculture dream a reality. In April 2021, Sri Lanka banned chemical fertilizers and pesticides, aiming for a full transition to organic agriculture. This led to devastating consequences: a sharp decline in staple crop yields, forcing imports, causing food insecurity, and significant losses in crucial export crops.
Sri Lankan authorities had no choice but to revert their policies.
Except for a few very wealthy nations like Switzerland, the top priority in agriculture is simply growing enough food, whether for subsistence or profit. Forget idealism; crop protection often boils down to who gets to eat first – ‘us or them’ (with ‘them’ being the pathogens). In that game, specific chemical poisons win over corresponding specific biocontrol agents, every time.
This is undeniable for single agents. But what about combinations? Nobody knows.
Combining different active ingredients is standard practice in conventional chemical pesticides and has proven very successful. And from a biological perspective, combining multiple biocontrol agents with complementary mechanisms that inhibit pathogens and promote plant health synergistically makes even more sense than cocktails of chemical poisons. Replacing chemical pesticides with breakthrough organic combinations will eventually happen.
Those who profit from the status quo will always try to tell you their solution is indispensable. But history is full of ‘irreplaceable’ technologies that went extinct: asbestos in construction, mercury in thermometers, phosphates in detergents, CFCs in refrigerants and aerosols, lead in gasoline…
The same will happen with chemical pesticides. It’s not an ‘if,’ but a ‘when.’ And to make that ‘when’ happen a bit faster, we’re designing Novo RTP – a rapid testing platform to discover synergistic combinations of biocontrol agents with breakthrough efficacies.
Of course, the number of combinations that ought to be tested is huge. And this is where Novochizol technology comes into play: as a material that can capture and release all classes of molecules, it holds the promise of a universal co-formulant, an “adhesive nanosponge” that can deliver any mixture of actives.
It takes less than an hour to make any Pizza from start to finish. The same holds true for a Novochizol prototype formulation.
A plant protection product with combination of actives would be like a single dish with a combination of foods… like a pizza. And in such a “pizza”, Novochizol would be the “dough” holding all the toppings together for the delight of the customer.
Novo RTP is initially being implemented as an open platform. It will bring together the best understanding of plant and plant pathogen biology, rapid high-tech screening technologies, and candidate biocontrol agents with the widest possible range of mechanisms of action.
And most importantly, it will bring the best people together – those who not only share the ideal of fully organic agriculture but also understand how to make Novo RTP an incredibly successful business proposition.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD IS THE ONE YOU ARE WITH IN THIS MOMENT - Leo Tolstoy.
Novochizol SA was born during a tough time for any startup: in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, thrown into a world where biotech investors seemed to vanish. And if that weren’t enough, the world then faced wars and a geopolitical quagmire… Yet, we not only survived, but we’re growing our most important asset: our people.
Let us briefly introduce the folks making all the difference in our agro work:
Guy Blache, MSc., Head R&D Agriculture
We’re thrilled to welcome Guy Blache to our team’ is something we should have said four years ago, back when Novochizol SA didn’t even exist! So, a public acknowledgment of his dedication and commitment to Novochizol is long overdue.
Guy brings a wealth of experience to the table in plant breeding, agrotech, and business management. With over 30 years in the field, including a decade at Monsanto, he has a deep understanding of crop breeding and selection, and of plant protection products. His expertise in small grains, corn, and oil crops, coupled with his experience in product development, regulatory support, and a thorough understanding of farmers’ needs, has been invaluable to our company.
The progress we’ve made with our R&D in plant protection owes nothing to luck. And if one day we’re buying healthy foods in the supermarket grown with Novochizol-based plant protection products, it will be all thanks to Guy!
Jean-David Rochaix. Ph D, Member of Scientific Advisory board.
Prof. Jean-David Rochaix is a distinguished scientist with a long and impressive career in plant biology and photosynthesis research. He held professorships in both the Molecular Biology and Plant Biology departments at the University of Geneva. After earning his PhD in Biophysics from Harvard, Prof. Rochaix conducted postdoctoral research at Yale before embarking on an outstanding academic career in Switzerland. More recently, he’s collaborated with several research groups in China as a Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Normal University, focusing on the acclimation of the photosynthetic apparatus to changing environmental conditions.
He’s celebrated for his groundbreaking contributions to chloroplast biogenesis and photosynthesis. His remarkable achievements have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Friedrich-Miescher Prize, Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society of Photosynthesis Research. As an elected member of both EMBO and Academia Europaea, he’s significantly influenced the international scientific community in his field.
Prof. Rochaix has authored numerous high-impact journal articles and served on the editorial boards of top-tier journals like Current Genetics and The EMBO Journal. His pioneering research has profoundly advanced our understanding of the biogenesis and dynamics of the photosynthetic machinery in eukaryotes, cementing his legacy as a leading scientist in his field.
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Thank you for reading!
We hope we’ve conveyed our excitement about realizing Novochizol’s potential in agriculture. If you’re interested in learning more about any aspect of our research or business plans, please reach out to us at partnering@novochizol.ch.
We’re still a small startup, but we’re becoming bigger and more impactful thanks to strategic partnerships and collaborations. So, we’d like to thank all of you who have made such sharing possible.
Our next newsletter will show you that the same collaborative spirit extends to our R&D in the biomedical field. Stay tuned!
