Sumitomo Chemical strengthens biorational business

Sumitomo Chemical announced that its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary Valent BioSciences Corporation (VBC) has signed a global licensing agreement with a U.S. based company, LidoChem, and a long-term development and commercialization cooperation agreement with an Argentina based company, Rizobacter, both aiming to strengthen its Biorational business further.

VBC has been waging an energetic drive recently to expand its biorational business in the U.S., opening a fermentation manufacturing facility in 2014 and acquiring Mycorrhizal Applications LLC, a producer of mycorrhizal fungal inoculum, in 2015. Furthermore, it will be building a new research unit as Biorational Research Center in Illinois, U.S.A. In parallel, Sumitomo Chemical has also taken steps forward, reinforcing its global agriculture-related business by integrating its plant protection chemicals business and VBC's biorational business that have been conducted separately. With the global business matrix structure now established, Sumitomo Chemical Group is accelerating research and development activities, aiming to provide unique and innovative solutions for agriculture.

The new technologies that become available under the above two agreements will provide Sumitomo Chemical with a greater opportunity to satisfy market needs more swiftly and properly by capitalizing on the two technological disciplines of health and crop science, i.e. plant protection chemicals and biorationals, which will contribute to meeting the world's growing demand for a secured and stable supply of safer foods.