East meets west: regional impact on agrochemical discovery and innovation

Insecticide mixtures-uses, benefits and considerations

Insecticides remain an important tool for the control of many insect pests. There has long been an interest in insecticide mixtures (in-can and tank-mix) as a means to provide the needed efficacy and/or spectrum to control many insect public health, crop pests or crop pest complexes. This aspect has become more important since insecticides developed in the last 30 years tend to be narrower in spectrum with many primarily focused on either sap-feeding or chewing insect pests. Insecticide mixtures are also seen as an important approach to insect resistance management (IRM) with certain requirements for optimal implementation. Additionally, insecticide mixtures can also address certain agronomic, commercial and intellectual property needs and opportunities. This perspective will review some of the drivers and considerations for insecticide mixtures and their potential uses. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Natural Product-Based Crop Protection Compounds─Origins and Future Prospects

The continuing need to protect food and fiber production to address the demands of an expanding global population requires new pest management tools for crop protection. Natural products (NPs) have been and continue to be a key source of inspiration for new active ingredients (AIs) for crop protection, accounting for 17% of all crop protection AIs. However, potentially 50% of all crop protection compounds have or could have a NP origin if NP synthetic equivalents (NPSEs, synthetic compounds discovered by other approaches but for which a NP model also happens to exist) are also considered. The real and hypothetical NPs have their greatest impact as insight for new classes of crop protection compounds. Among the different product areas, NPs have their largest influence on the discovery of new insecticides, while herbicides have been the least affected by mining NPs for new AIs. While plants have historically been the largest (60% of the total) source of NPs of AIs for crop protection, in the last 30 years, bacterial NPs have become the largest source (42% of the total) of new classes (first in class) of NP-inspired crop protection AIs. Interest in NPs for crop protection continues, an aspect that is highlighted by the notable rise in the numbers of publications and patents on this topic, especially in the last 20 years. The present analysis further illustrates the continuing interest and value in NPs as sources of and inspiration for new classes of crop protection compounds.

Innovation in insecticide discovery: Approaches to the discovery of new classes of insecticides

The continuing demand for agrochemical insecticides that can meet increasing grower, environmental, consumer and regulatory requirements creates the need for the development of new solutions for managing crop pest insects. The development of resistance to the currently available insecticidal products adds another critical driver for new insecticidal active ingredients (AIs). One avenue to meeting these challenges is the creation of new classes of insecticidal molecules to act as starting points and prototypes stimulating further spectrum, efficacy and environmental impact refinements. A new class of insecticides is foreshadowed by the first molecule exemplifying that class (first-in-class, FIC) and offers one measure of innovation within the agrochemical industry. Most insecticides owe their discovery to competitor-inspired (i.e. competitor patents/products) or next-generation (follow-on to a company's pre-existing product) strategies. In contrast, FIC insecticides primarily emerge from a bioactive hypothesis approach, with the largest segment resulting from the exploration of new areas of chemistry/heterocycles and underexploited motifs. Natural products also play an important role in the discovery of FIC insecticides. Understanding the origins of these FIC compounds and the approaches used in their discovery can provide insights into successful strategies for future FIC insecticides. This review analyses information on historic and recently introduced FIC insecticides. Its main objective has been to identify the most successful discovery strategies for identifying new agrochemical solutions to meet the challenge of minimizing crop losses resulting from insects. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Impact of natural products on discovery of, and innovation in, crop protection compounds

Natural products (NPs) have long been an important source of, and inspiration for, developing novel compounds to control weeds, pathogens and insect pests. In this review, we use a dataset of 800 historic, current and emerging crop protection compounds to explore the influence of NPs on the introduction of new crop protection compounds (fungicides, herbicides, insecticides) as a function of time. NPs, their semisynthetic derivatives (NPDs) and compounds inspired by NPs (NP mimics, NPMs) account for 17% of all crop protection compounds. NPs, NPDs, and NPMs have been a fairly constant source of new agrochemicals over the past 70 years. NP synthetic equivalents (NPSEs) is a fourth group of NP-related crop protection compounds composed of synthetic compounds which by chance also happen to have an NP model (but are not involved in the discovery). If NPSE compounds are also included, then 50% of all crop protection compounds hypothetically could have had a NP origin. Similar trends also hold true for the impact of NPs on the discovery of new modes of action (MoA) or innovation in crop protection compounds as measured by the number of first-in-class compounds. NPs have had the largest impact on the numbers and global sales (2018 USD) of insecticides compared to fungicides and herbicides. The present analysis highlights NPs as a long-standing and continuing source of new chemistry, new MoAs and innovation in crop protection compound discovery. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.