BugBiome lands £500K grant to develop beetle-fighting bioinsecticide
What's the deal? BugBiomeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, an agri-biotech startup based at Norwich Research Park, has secured a £500,000 grant from Innovate UK to develop a new biological insecticide targeting cabbage stem flea beetles (CSFB) in oilseed rape.
The 24-month project pairs BugBiome with the John Innes CentreDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Harper Adams University, and Applied Insect Science. Dr Rachel Wells of the John Innes Centre is supplying beetles from experimental colonies for product testing, while Professor Tom Pope of Harper Adams will lead behavioural work.
What's the endgame? BugBiome wants to build a range of biological crop protection products. Its first is an aphicide for potatoes and sugar beet; the CSFB project marks its move into "coleopteran pests," or beetles, which it aims to commercialise after the project ends.
Why now? Tighter regulations have left farmers with fewer chemical insecticide options than ever, pushing the industry to seek credible alternatives that make economic sense for arable crops.
The pressure is acute for oilseed rape, which has struggled since the ban on neonicotinoids nearly a decade ago. "There has never been a more important time to find sustainable solutions to CSFB which can cause complete crop failure if left unchecked," said James Warner, managing director of farmer cooperative United Oilseeds.
Chief executive officer Dr Alicia Showering said the company chose Norwich to tap local expertise: "The move to Norwich has placed us at the heart of the UK's agri-biotech community giving us access to the talent and facilities to accelerate our products to commercialisation."
The signal: The grant is a modest sum, but it reflects a clear market gap. As regulators withdraw chemical pesticides, publicly funded biological alternatives are drawing early backing — and clustering research talent on shared campuses to speed them to market.
Read more: the-microbiologist.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
