May 8, 2025

Moa and NAICONS partner to find bioherbicides

Moa Technology, an agricultural biotech company based in Oxford, has partnered with Italian natural products firm NAICONS to accelerate the search for a biological herbicide. The collaboration will use Moa’s high-throughput screening platform to evaluate 70,000 micro-bacterial extracts from NAICONS’ library.

The goal is to identify biological compounds that can control weeds safely and sustainably, either as standalone products or to enhance existing herbicides. Moa gains exclusive rights to develop any herbicides discovered, with shared commercial value from future licensing.

Herbicide resistance is a growing concern for global agriculture. More than 273 weed species are resistant to one or more commercial herbicides. In the United States alone, annual crop losses due to weeds cost over $11 billion. In the UK, resistant blackgrass costs farmers about $500 million annually.

To date, Moa has screened nearly 800,000 compounds, identifying over 70 with potentially novel modes of action. Three synthetic herbicides discovered by the company have already shown strong performance in early international field trials.

“Our discovery platform is very well suited to screen natural product libraries, as it provides a reliable and early indication when a compound is too weak or too toxic to become a commercially viable herbicide,” said chief executive officer Virginia Corless.

NAICONS CEO Stefano Donadio noted that their extract library, which includes over 150,000 identified molecules, has never before been screened for herbicides.