Moa announces international field trial success with new herbicide classes

Moa Technology, a spin-off from the University of Oxford, has announced excellent results from field trials in several countries with promising new classes of herbicides whose novel mechanisms of action the company recently discovered.

Weeds pose a serious and growing threat to food security around the world. With over 270 species of weeds now resistant to commercially available herbicides and no new broad-spectrum herbicides coming to market in the last forty years, farmers around the world are running out of tools to protect their crops.

In a presentation to the American Chemical Society in Denver, Colorado, titled “Discovering and developing the next generation of herbicides with novel mechanisms of action,” Moa revealed that all classes of chemicals tested in trials earlier this year showed promising efficacy in the field, producing consistent and robust results across multiple field trials and climates.

Following the trials, Moa has already begun optimising the chemistry and formulation of these herbicides to develop them into products that are more cost-effective, effective, sustainable and require less effort for farmers. Further trials will take place in the Southern Hemisphere later this year, as well as initial field trials of other compounds from Moa's extensive research and development pipeline.

Moa's H1 2024 field trial program included 45 trials of industry-standard randomized block experiments involving multiple classes of chemicals previously validated in the laboratory and tested in greenhouses. The trials were conducted by independent contract research organizations in California, Tennessee, Spain, France and the UK, covering agricultural production in three different major climate zones.

Presenting the data at the ACS conference, Dr. Shuji Hachisu, Chief Technology Officer at Moa, said:

“We are very pleased with these field trial results. They are an excellent validation of our unique approach to herbicide discovery. Our compounds have demonstrated efficacy well beyond what would normally be expected from candidates whose chemistry and formulation have not yet been fully optimized. This is great news for farmers who are looking for a new generation of novel, effective, safe, cost-effective and sustainable products to control resistant and problematic weeds.”

Spun out of the University of Oxford in 2017, Moa has developed proprietary technology to discover an entirely new generation of synthetic and bioherbicidal compounds based on novel mechanisms of action, providing farmers with safe, cost-effective and technologically advanced solutions at a pace that weeds cannot keep up with.

Over the past three years, Moa's platform has already screened over 750,000 compounds and discovered over 70 promising new areas of activity. In July 2024, Moa signed a major partnership with Nufarm to co-develop and co-commercialize one of these new chemical series.