Crop protection compounds – trends and perspective

Abstract

The Industry responsible for the discovery and development of crop protection compounds has undergone dramatic changes and increasing consolidation since the initial innovations in synthetic organic fungicides, herbicides and insecticides in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Likewise, there have been striking changes in the rate of introduction of new crop protection compounds over the past 70 years. While numerous studies over the past five decades have signaled the ongoing decline in the numbers of new active ingredients (AIs), a detailed analysis of the trends in the rate of introduction of crop protection compounds shows a more complex pattern in the overall output of new AIs. The recent (post‐2000) decline in the numbers of new herbicides is the primary source of the perceived decline in overall numbers. When herbicides are excluded, the output of new fungicides and insecticides has been relatively constant, especially for the past 20 years. A notable observation is that innovation, as measured by the number of compounds representing a new chemical class (First‐in‐Class) has been relatively constant for the past 70 years, and most recently has been driven by the appearance of new fungicides and insecticides. Thus, the discovery and development of new AIs for crop protection and public health continues, in spite of the many challenges and changes to the Industry. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry

East meets west: regional impact on agrochemical discovery and innovation

“…However, in many crop–pest–geographies, synthetic organic crop protection compounds remain an important tool for the control of a range of pathogen, weed and insect pests. These crop protection options are impacted by a number of factors including the appearance of new pests and pest resistance to existing crop protection tools 5–9 . Further, increasingly stringent consumer demands, and regulatory requirements, have led to the loss of use of many past and current pest control tools 5,9–12 .…”

“…These crop protection options are impacted by a number of factors including the appearance of new pests and pest resistance to existing crop protection tools 5–9 . Further, increasingly stringent consumer demands, and regulatory requirements, have led to the loss of use of many past and current pest control tools 5,9–12 . Thus, there remains a continual need for new crop protection compounds that can provide further improvements in selectivity and environmental profiles to address increasingly stringent consumer demands and regulatory requirements 1,5,12–14 .…”

“…Since the early days (1940s–1960s) there has been an on‐going contraction and consolidation in the crop protection compound industry (Figures 1 and 2), 11,13,15–20 as observed for other mature industries (e.g., automobile, airlines, pharmaceuticals). One consequence of these mergers and consolidations is that among the R&D‐based crop protection companies there are now a handful of exceptionally large (based on sales; Figure 3) multinational companies (Figures 1 and 2) spread between Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and the USA 9,11,13,20 . These few large multinational companies are accompanied by a more numerous group of smaller R&D‐based companies, primarily in Japan (Figures 1–3).…”

“…Changes in the crop protection compound industry are expected to impact the numbers of new crop protection compounds emerging from the R&D‐based companies. During the past several decades, there have been numerous reports suggesting an apparent overall decline in the numbers of new crop protection compounds being developed, 21–31 while others suggest that the numbers have been variable as a function of time, 9,14,19,32‐34 all, in part, a reflection of the data and period examined. However, the total output of new active ingredients (AIs) is not the only parameter of importance.…”

Understanding the biological action of insecticides is the key to their continuous improvement

“…The connection between the artificial intelligence‐based neural networks used to optimize the semi‐synthetic, natural product‐based spinosyns into spinetoram is discussed, as well as the use of computer‐aided molecular design to build a fully synthetic molecule with the same unique mode of action. Sparks also contributes a second article to this special issue describing decades‐long trends in the discovery and development of crop protection chemicals, with a particular focus on the innovations which have brought new classes of compounds to the industry 2 …”