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LONDON (Alliance News) - Plant Health Care PLC on Tuesday said it aims to have at least one of its platforms generating revenue next year after expanding the potential uses for the products derived from its Innatus 3G platform and accelerating development of its 4G platforms.
The company provides patent-protected biological products to agriculture markets and is currently building a portfolio of plant response elicitor technology platforms which generate those biological products that help to increase crop yields.
Plant Health Care's first platform, Innatus 3G, is in the second year of evaluation and is under contract with four industry majors. The platform produces peptides which have previously been proven to raise yields in corn and soybean crops.
On Tuesday, the company said recent trials of those peptides, a type of acid compound, now show nematode suppression and resistance to plant diseases, which Plant Health Care said are "in-licensing targets" for major agricultural players.
As a result, the interest by existing partners for Innatus 3G has increased as they are mulling expanding their existing agreements with the business.
"The continuing activity of majors in evaluating our first platform, Innatus 3G, is testament to the industry's focus on finding biologicals that deliver high performance and will work alongside their established product ranges. We are working towards announcing an expansion of our current joint activities in the next few months. We anticipate initiating the first competitive licensing process for Innatus 3G at the end of 2017," said the company.
Beyond Innatus 3G, Plant Health Care said two new 3G peptide platforms have been characterised, and patent applications already have been submitted. The company said this has occurred sooner than expected and said one of those platforms should be presented to potential users later this year and begin to generate revenue sometime in 2017.
"We started with the hope of designing a few promising peptides. Today we find ourselves in the business of developing whole technology platforms, each one able to generate a portfolio of viable biological products. We have now characterised three such platforms, with a fourth on the way," said Chief Executive Paul Schmidt.
Away from the 3G technology, Plant Health Care said it has started to look for partners for its 4G genetic technology.
Plant Health Care shares were down 4.5% to 48.00 pence per share on Tuesday.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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