AgPlenus Ltd. announced that it has achieved a milestone in the collaboration with Corteva Agriscience. The milestone marks the successful identification of a new family of molecules exhibiting herbicidal effect through a novel Mode of Action (MoA), APCO-12, discovered by AgPlenus. Herbicide market is estimated at $42.81 billion in 2024.

Most commercially available herbicides are based on small molecules that inhibit target proteins (MoAs) in weeds, leading to weed mortality. In recent years the global agricultural industry has faced a growing challenge of weed resistance to existing herbicides, created in part by a limited number of new MoAs for weed control in the last three decades. The collaboration, commencing in 2020, aims to develop a new MoA herbicide by merging Corteva's leadership in product discovery with AgPlenus's computational technology platform.

AgPlenus announced that, together with Corteva, they have identified a new potential class of herbicidal molecules through a novel MoA APCO-12. In the next phase, the collaboration will focus on optimizing the identified class of molecules towards a commercial-level product, utilizing AgPlenus' cutting-edge computational technology, powered by Evogene'sChemPass AI tech engine and Corteva's R&D capabilities. Vid Hegde, VP of Crop Protection Discovery and Development at Corteva, said "Farmers are in dire need of new technologies to address weed resistance challenges.