On deck

Suppliers tweak formulations and abate costs when bringing new pesticides to the market.

Even though pesticide suppliers have different approaches to the golf market, they have one thing is common: They work to bring better and needed products to market to aid superintendents in their pursuit of growing and maintaining beautiful and healthy turfgrass.

Many fungicides are needed in the golf market because superintendents push cool-season turfgrass to high growth levels using a lot of water.

Nick Hamon, director of development and technical services for Bayer Environmental Science, says it costs about $240 million to bring a new pesticide to market.

“It takes nine to 11 years to get a new product to market, and patents in the United States last 17 to 20 years, starting from the time the product is granted,” Hamon says. “It’s a numbers game.”

Bayer screens 1 million compounds a year and introduces one to three products a year, according to Hamon.

“Our focus is on the agrichemical market because it can support the cost of bringing a new product to market, whereas the specialty markets, like golf, cannot,” he says. “If you can’t make it into one of the six big crops with a new chemistry, you won’t see the product.”

Nick Hamon

Bayer’s approach to the market is widespread, Hamon says.

“Our focus is more broad than just disease control, but rather turf quality as a whole, which includes the whole spectrum – turf stress, disease control, etc. – so we’ve moved away from targeting individual diseases,” he says. “Disease control is a huge component of turf quality. We’re recommending our products with others’ products. We’re looking at programs from the beginning of the season to the end and fitting products into these programs.”

Phoenix Environmental Care LLC evaluates several factors before selecting a generic pesticide to bring to market.

“We need to make a fair margin, our distributors need to make a fair margin, and the superintendent needs to save money,” says Owen Towne, president of Phoenix Environmental. “So depending on those three aspects, we choose a molecule that can make that work. We then enhance the formulation and make it different, if not better, than the brand name product.”

When the company selects a molecule it wants to formulate, there are several parts of the equation – surfactants, emulsifiers, particle size, viscosity and suspendibility – it will look at to change a formulation to try and make it better than the name brand formulation. A company has the opportunity to change these to improve the formulation, but some don’t and make it as close to the original name brand formulation as possible and sell it cheaply, Towne says.

Owen Towne

“Generics have a much easier time going through the [Environmental Protection Agency] than name brand products,” he says. “But on the flip side, a company with a brand name has 17 years and a monopoly on a position in the market that allows the time for a company to make money and recoup the [research and development] money. If a company can’t do that in 17 years, they’re not doing something right.”

Towne saw an opportunity to offer value-added generic pesticides to the market.

“We believe there’s a segment of superintendents that want to save money and support a company that supports them,” he says.

Phoenix supports the industry by being a member of several industry associations and advertising in national and regional magazines, among other things.

The company started selling product in March and is on track to meet it projection of $5 million in sales this year.

On or off patent
One aspect affecting products in development is whether other products are on or off patent. Some patents are ending this year and next, but Syngenta’s strategic approach is holistic and doesn’t change based on the life cycle of a product, according to Joe DiPaola, Ph.D., golf market manager of Syngenta Professional Products.

“End-users’ needs come first regardless of patent status,” he says.

A product’s status isn’t always decided by an expiration date on a single patent, DiPaola says. He cites the company’s Maxx formulation technology, used in products such as Primo Maxx, Banner Maxx and Subdue Maxx, as an example. The Maxx formulations, which reduce odor and ease tank-mix compatibility, were developed specifically for the T&O market, so both active ingredient patents and formulation technology require duplication when a generic competitor decides to enter the market, DiPaola says.

“They are the most compatible, easy-to-mix, stable-in-the-tank products we make, he says about the Maxx formulations. “It’s an expensive process to innovate and maintain. There are often a series of patents, formulas and chemical processes involved. It’s complicated.

“It cost us $120 million and a decade to bring Primo Maxx to market, and we will protect that investment. Today’s course conditioning requires the best active ingredients and formulation technology available.”

Still, Syngenta has been consistent with its strategy since its inception five years ago.

“There are a lot of sound components that differentiate our solutions package,” DiPaola says. “One of them is full-service distribution channel partners.”

In the works
Even with all of the pesticides available, suppliers continue to develop new and better ones. Scott Eicher, senior product marketing manager for herbicides for Dow AgroSciences, says companies focus on opportunities.

“If you look at the big three – Syngenta, Bayer and Dow – Syngenta is the No. 1 supplier of fungicides to the golf market, Bayer is the No. 1 supplier of insecticides and Dow is the No. 1 supplier of herbicides,” he says. “So each one of the big three focus on other areas that they aren’t No. 1 in. For us, there would be opportunities with fungicides, and we’re always looking at that. We also have an herbicide with a new molecule that should be out in the market in about two years, and a fungicide will be coming out in about three to four years.”

Arysta LifeScience is focusing on the fungicide market because there are many types of diseases, according to Doug Houseworth, Ph.D., turf and ornamental technical service research and development manager. He says many fungicides are needed in the golf market because superintendents push cool-season turf to high growth levels using a lot of water. The company has rights to develop a third-generation strobilurin fungicide. There are three (Compass, Heritage and Insignia) on the market already, so why is the company working on another?

“It’s the same chemical class, but each strobilurin fungicide has a different spectrum of activity,” Houseworth says. “Ours will provide more broad pithium blight control.”

BASF is working on two new fungicides because there’s more opportunity with fungicides compared to insecticides and herbicides, according to Kyle Miller, senior technical specialist for BASF Professional Turf & Ornamentals.

Toni Bucci, Ph.D., business manager for BASF Professional Turf & Ornamentals, says the company’s portfolio is driven by the customer and any profitability gets recycled into R&D.

“Our dual strategy is to make and market generic and proprietary pesticides,” she says. “We provide the same service with the generics as with the pesticides that have the proprietary chemistries.”

Hamon says Bayer is working on a new chemistry that will be brought to market in 2009 that will boost the company’s herbicide offering of broad-spectrum weed control.

“There’s huge potential for us,” he says. “People in the golf market are willing to pay more for quality, and that’s what Bayer is trying to provide.”

Syngenta is working on registering a grub control product, according to DiPaola.

Phoenix Environmental is working on new formulations with chlorothalonil flowable, chlorothalonil dry flowable, propiconazole microemulsion concentrate, bifenthrin microemulsion concentrate and Vital Sign.

And PBI Gordon wants to ensure 2,4-D remains available to the turf market, according to Bill Brocker, v.p. of marketing.

Bill Brocker

“There are only four companies that own the right to manufacture 2,4-D, which is an old chemistry that is a basic broadleaf herbicide,” he says. “It had to be reregistered, and that’s just being completed. It has taken 15 years and $30 million to reregister 2,4-D.”

Brocker says the company’s approach is to combine chemistries to get a broad spectrum and will continue to do that.

“We’re working on two products that will come out next year: A combination chemistry that controls broadleaf weeds and postemergent grassy weeds. It will control almost all weed problems, sedges to crabgrass, and will be safe on turf. Also in pipeline is a combination insecticide product.

“There are few brand new chemistries the specialty or turf market can’t support,” he adds. GCN