Bayer CropScience and Janssen Pharmaceutica nv, Beerse, Belgium, have concluded a multi-year research agreement to develop new

EUROPEAN NEWS AND MARKETS

EUROPEAN AGROCHEMICAL INDUSTRY DEFEATS COUNTERFEITERS

Three of the major agrochemical companies, BASF, Bayer Crop Science and DuPont, have won three separate legal battles against illegal traders and counterfeiters. The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) says that the victories in Germany, Spain and Poland reflect the determination of the industry to fight the growing wave of criminal counterfeiting and illegal trade across Europe. All three companies are part of ECPA’s anti-counterfeit campaign and the association welcomes these judgments. It says that each case demonstrates the exceedingly lengthy process needed to gain convictions and the relatively light penalties passed down to criminals who endanger human health and the environment. The head of the ECPA anti-counterfeit programme, Rocky Rowe, said that industry would continue to fight counterfeiters and illegal traders in court and by working with governments to toughen legislation at the European and national levels. He added that legitimate producers, large and small, were determined to stem the increase in counterfeit trade which is being accelerated by the reduction in pest management options posed by the EU regulatory review combined with the current harsh economy.
Following a lengthy court case against Realchemie Nederland, BASF won a decision regarding an illegal parallel import. Realchemie had imported into Germany and sold 45,420 litres of product purportedly identical to the BASF rape herbicide Nimbus CS. The market value of such an amount of the BASF product is approximately €1.5 million. While Realchemie claimed that the product was chemically identical to Nimbus CS, it was found not to be of BASF origin. The company subsequently filed and won a preliminary injunction for a patent infringement over the use of monoclinic metazachlor found only in Nimbus CS. A final ruling was made in 2008 in favour of BASF and more recently Realchemie was instructed to destroy the whole consignment. Klaus Welsch, group vice president of BASF, said: “We favour strong competition, but we believe the onus should be on the Government to ensure only legitimate products of high quality are sold to farmers, even those available through parallel trade”.
Similar actions and results were achieved by DuPont in Poland this year. Following investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Wabrzezno, charges were filed in the District Court against an individual for selling counterfeit products based on DuPont technology. The court case lasted for almost two years and as a result the defendant was convicted of the crime of marketing counterfeit pesticides. The court awarded substantial damages to DuPont, a suspended custodial sentence on the guilty party and the prohibition to trade in crop protection products for three years. Tom McHale, DuPont anti-counterfeit manager, said: “This is part of an ongoing DuPont Crop Protection stewardship programme, which promotes high quality standards and safe use of crop protection products to protect the farmer, the environment, and the safety of the food supply”.
In Murcia, Spain earlier in the year, three individuals were accused and found guilty of committing “a crime against public health and a crime against consumers”. The perpetrators had commercialised several pesticides not registered in Spain without the legally required permits. They had also failed to properly label the products. Some of the products were formulated with the active ingredient imidacloprid, a product registered by Bayer Crop Science. The judge sentenced them to two fines (one for each one of the crimes committed) and specifically barred them from working with pesticides. Bayer CropScience's global product defence manager Gerwin Bouillon said: “The sale of these illegal products not only violates Bayer CropScience's rights, but also presents unacceptable risks to crops, the environment and the health of farmers and consumers. The judge clearly attached great importance to the public health risk these criminals created”.

ROTAM TO DISTRIBUTE AGFORM FORMULATIONS

Rotam Agrochemical Company has signed an exclusive agreement with Agform (www.agform.com) to distribute novel agrochemical formulations. Agform is a UK-based company that specialises in the development and manufacture of new and improved formulations of existing crop protection active ingredients. “As a centre of excellence for research and development, with a strong focus on innovation in the formulation of new chemistry, Agform aligns closely with Rotam's own business aims,” said Graham Dickinson, Rotam's regional manager for the UK and Northern Europe.

Rotam carries out its own integrated agrochemical product manufacturing, research and development, independent product registration and technical support for the crop protection industry, on a worldwide basis. Having introduced its product range to the UK and Europe last year, the company is aiming to offer a complete package of targeted crop protection products formulated through independent research. Agform's managing director, John Misselbrook, commented: “Our partnership with Rotam will provide Agform with a rapidly growing distribution network throughout the world, a strong manufacturing base for actives in China and a commitment to support these with research data to meet the increasing demands of agriculture and the regulatory bodies.” Rotam's ability to provide a route to market will allow Agform to focus solely on the development of a number of new technologies, which are currently planned for introduction into Europe over the next two to three years. The first of these is a soluble granule formulation of metsulfuron-methyl, which will be marketed in the UK in 2009.  There are a number of products in the registration process, which Rotam will be launching later in the year.

RESEARCHERS JOIN FORCES TO INVESTIGATE POTATO BLIGHT

Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), Dundee, Scotland and the universities of Dundee and Warwick are to join forces in a multi-million pound project to investigate late blight on potatoes. Blight is still the most destructive potato disease in the world and accounts for more than £3 billion ($4.53 billion) a year in crop failure and the cost of fungicides. Researchers will examine how molecules called effectors from the potato pathogen Phytophthora infestans are able to cause late blight and how Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis effectors cause downy mildew in the model plant Arabidopsis.
The £3.5 million grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council comes under the Longer and Larger (LoLa) programme to fund collaborative research. The project will be led by Professor Paul Birch, Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Dundee, who said: “As in animals, plants have evolved a complex immune system to prevent attack from micro-organisms but microbes continue to evolve ways to get round the defences and establish disease. They achieve this by secreting proteins called effectors into cells of the plant which block the plant’s immune responses. The discovery that the pathogens Phytophthora and Hyaloperonospora have hundreds of genes encoding these effectors, along with recent advances in technology to study protein-protein interactions, provides an unparalleled opportunity to investigate how plant defences are targeted and suppressed by invading microbes.”