Bayer CropScience to acquire AgraQuest

Bayer CropScience has signed an agreement to purchase AgraQuest Inc. for a reported $500 million.

Headquartered in Davis, Calif., AgraQuest is a global supplier of biological pest management solutions based on natural microorganisms. This acquisition will enable Bayer CropScience to build a leading technology platform for green products and to strengthen its fruits and vegetables business, while also opening new opportunities in other crops and markets, according to a company press release.

“The growing fruits and vegetables market, which today accounts for more than 25 percent of our sales, is of strategic importance for us,” said Sandra Peterson, CEO of Bayer CropScience.

The tailor-made portfolio and promising R&D pipeline of AgraQuest will help Bayer CropScience build a broad-based technology platform to bring a new generation of products to the market, according to the company.

“AgraQuest expands our existing biological pest control portfolio centered on our successful Votivo biological nematicide, and it allows us to further leverage the biotechnology platform we have acquired through Athenix Corporation,” said Peterson.

With 250 full-time employees, AgraQuest has its own sales force in the NAFTA crop protection market and sells its green products through a network of distributors and partners in other global regions. The company’s current product portfolio includes well-established product brands such as Serenade, Rhapsody, Sonata and Ballad fungicides and Requiem insecticides.

Bayer CropScience will also leverage AgraQuest's technology platform and pipeline of new biological control agents. Several new products, which include acaracides, fungicides and nematicides, among others, are under development and have undergone successful early field evaluations. Through the acquisition, Bayer CropScience will integrate AgraQuest’s biopesticides production facility in Tlaxcala, Mexico, as well as the company’s R&D site in Davis.

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