{"id":9904,"date":"2023-09-12T07:49:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T06:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startupvalley.news\/uk\/?p=9904"},"modified":"2024-05-08T07:11:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T06:11:12","slug":"icl-and-agrematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startupvalley.news\/uk\/icl-and-agrematch\/","title":{"rendered":"ICL and Agrematch to Develop Novel Crop Nutrition Solutions via AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Founded in 2017, by experienced entrepreneurs and industry veterans, Agrematch has been developing and refining its unique AI4AI \u2013 Artificial Intelligence for Active Ingredients platform ever since. ICL Growing Solutions, the agriculture division of ICL, is partnering with Agrematch as a strategic investment designed to be complementary to, and synergistic with, its long-term growth plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Agrematch platform is expected to produce proprietary compounds developed as unique biostimulants and plant nutrition products, ultimately optimizing overall plant and soil health and maximizing plant yield, quality and resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent years, AI has emerged as a key technology in discovering and developing innovative compounds, most frequently in drug discovery. According to an April 2022 study by Insider Intelligence, pharmaceutical companies have been saving nearly 70% of their discovery costs by using AI1<\/sup><\/em>. This new method has the potential to eliminate up to five years of the average seven-year time frame for bringing a candidate compound to trial2<\/sup><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cICL\u2019s partnership with Agrematch brings the rapidly evolving application of AI into ICL\u2019s agricultural development ecosystem,\u201d noted Hadar Sutovsky, vice president of External Innovation and general manager of ICL Planet Startup Hub. \u201cAgrematch\u2019s AI4AI prediction platform has the potential to streamline our compound discovery process, reduce the time and costs involved, and lead to the development of more effective and efficient crop solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mission Critical<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the urgent need for new sustainable crop nutrition products, the current discovery process is unable to meet demand. The prohibitively risky, costly and lengthy product development cycle \u2013 coupled with increasing regulatory requirements calling for sustainable products with a lower environmental footprint \u2013 has led to a reduction in the number of new product introductions. A faster and more efficient methodology, to identify new active ingredients for use in the development of ag products, is vital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are excited to partner with ICL and explore new solutions for plant nutrition,\u201d said Eyal Ben-Chanoch, CEO of Agrematch. \u201cUsing data science, and especially AI, has helped us to dramatically alter the discovery process, by eliminating both its sequential nature and the barriers that make the classical high-throughput screening methods costly, risky and time consuming. Our AI4AI platform was designed and built to discover new functional compounds that meet defined specifications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n AI-based solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Within the AI4AI system, Agrematch models are trained to fulfill the specifications of a well-defined product concept. The system\u2019s predictive algorithms run through billions of molecules in a massive proprietary database. Novel compounds can thus be designed, creating a shortlist of candidates with the desired functionalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis collaboration will focus on developing novel biostimulants products that provide superior results for plants,\u201d said Elinor Erez, PhD, vice president of R&D for ICL Growing Solutions. \u201cIt supports our strategy to continue investing in the ag-biologicals market, which we see as highly complementary to \u2013 and aligning with \u2013 our existing agriculture business and the future of our specialty crop nutrition portfolios. <\/p>\n\n\n\n