Bayer announces collaboration with Oerth Bio

Bayer and agricultural biotech company Oerth Bio will collaborate to develop the next generation of sustainable crop protection products. Founded in 2019 by Bayer's impact investment arm, Leaps by Bayer, and Arvinas, Oerth Bio has patented the PROTAC protein degradation technology.

This unique protein degradation technology provides an innovative pathway to entirely novel crop protection and climate resilient farm solutions, and supports Bayer's sustainability objectives.

"The world's farmers need dependable and sustainable solutions to crop protection challenges, and PROTAC protein degradation technologies show an increasingly promising path toward a new way to develop tailored technologies," said Robert Reiter, head of R&D at Bayer's Crop Science Division, in a news release. "We expect protein degradation technology, already used in medicine, to be an important cornerstone for the development of new crop protection products that reduce the impact on the environment significantly. Oerth Bio's work has proven to be promising, and we are looking forward to what the next phase of our work together will bring."

Oerth Bio's target protein degraders offer the capacity for high-precision product development, low application rates, and opportunities to overcome biological resistance. PROTAC molecules activate a specific, naturally occurring process within target species, offering precise impacts on weeds, diseases, and insects while limiting negative effects on crops.

"This collaboration further emboldens our ambitions for first-in-the-world farm centric protein degrader solutions," said John Dombrosky, Oerth Bio CEO, in a news release. "It's a real tribute to Bayer's leadership and vision, as they significantly invest in breakthroughs that could change farming and the world for the better."