Sumitomo Chemical Company, parent company of Valent, recently entered an agreement with DuPont Crop Protection, a business unit of DowDuPont Agriculture Division, for the development, registration and commercialization of seed treatment technology globally.
The pair entered this agreement to speed up development and commercialization of seed-applied technology products. It combines the conventional chemical and biological pipeline of Sumitomo with seed technology, development and commercialization ability of DuPont’s. The companies say working together will allow them to identify and evaluate technology earlier to make commercialization decisions and investments sooner.
“We typically share products with other companies two to four years before commercialization,” says Trey Soud, Valent director of row crop marketing. “This brings them together earlier and the end goal is commercializing products that might not have been found without early collaboration.”
The companies worked together in the past on a corn fungicide called Intego. This collaboration formalizes and grants the companies access to each other’s technology earlier in the development process than in the past.
“Two to three years would be a reasonable timeline because we can look at new products earlier and jointly develop them earlier,” says Mick Messman, DuPont director of global seed applied technologyu. For products not yet registered we would need to wait for that registration, which would add time, he adds.
“Once regulatory happens we can launch products at a larger scale,” Messman says.
Companies will focus on the North American cropping region, but maintain the potential to market globally.