Syngenta Crop Protection and the French biotechnology company Amoéba have signed an exclusive supply and distribution agreement for a next-generation biocontrol fungicide, formulation AXP20, based on the lysate of the amoeba Willaertia magna C2c Maky (EU 2025/1177). The deal turns the companies' November 2025 memorandum of understanding into a binding long-term commercial and development partnership; the product will be sold under a Syngenta trademark once registered.

Syngenta will be the exclusive distributor for all cereals except maize across the EU-27, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Switzerland, targeting first the two most economically damaging fungal diseases of European cereals: septoria tritici blotch (Zymoseptoria tritici) and yellow rust (Puccinia striiformis). Together the two affect an estimated 9 to 12 million hectares a year; in Germany alone septoria drives yield losses of 5% to 50%, costing farmers up to €1.5 billion a year, while yellow rust can cut yields by 10% to 70% and destroy susceptible varieties outright.

First market registrations are expected in the third quarter of 2028, with first sales in core EU markets by the end of 2028 for farmers' use in spring 2029 in wheat, spelt and triticale, and registrations around 2029 in the UK and Switzerland. Derived from a single-celled amoeba, the product works mainly by inhibiting the germination of fungal spores and has shown strong field efficacy against both diseases while activating the plant's own defences; FRAC classes it under group BM02 — biologicals with multiple modes of action — with no known resistance and a low to very low resistance risk.

The active substance received EU approval in 2025 after EFSA's assessment, and in June 2026 Amoéba secured a French marketing authorisation for AXPERA, a biofungicide on the same technology, clearing the way for other member states' national authorisations. 'With conventional crop protection facing mounting regulatory and resistance headwinds, this next-generation biofungicide arrives at exactly the right moment,' said Matthew Pickard, Syngenta's head of seedcare and biologicals for Europe.

Jean-Marc Petat, managing director of Green for Agro, Amoéba's biosolutions subsidiary, said Syngenta's screening had selected AXP20 as the highest-performing biofungicide, 'the first next-generation biofungicide able to control both yellow rust and septoria diseases in wheat'. The partners are running more than 70 field trials in 2026, and Syngenta says the product could protect more than a million hectares of cereals across its European footprint, with extensions into new crops and geographies envisaged.

Source: AgriBusiness Global