Conversation with Bryan Witherbee of Agragene

Insect pests like Spotted Wing Drosophila, Olive Fruit Fly, Navel Orangeworm, MedFly and Fall Armyworm cause over $20B of damage to food crops every year. Farmers use harmful chemical pesticides to fight these insects. Agragene is using CRISPR-based gene editing to produce sterile male insects. The released sterile males then mate with wild females, effectively suppressing the insect population. To learn more, I spoke with Agragene’s CEO, Bryan Witherbee.

FTW: What is your background, and how did you end up running the company?

BW: My career started at Searle Pharmaceutical and over time held various R&D and business development leadership roles at Pfizer, Monsanto, and Becton Dickinson. I was drawn to start-ups as the next phase of my career that has included a role as CSO at GenCell Biosystems, CEO at Adarza Biosystems and Ferris Genomics.

I was hired by Agragene as a consultant in 2022 to evaluate the company, and the opportunity to scale and commercialize its pgSIT technology.  From this engagement I quickly became a believer in the company technology and opportunity – from the market need and fit to seeing how it provides broad benefits to growers, consumers and society more broadly. I personally invested in the company and was also brought on as its CEO. I have been lucky throughout my career to have worked for and with the absolute best people. Agragene is no exception.”

FTW: Who are some of these ‘absolute best people’?

BW: “Well, to just mention a few of them:

• Stephanie Gamez, PhD joined Agragene as a post-doc in 2021 and has been a passionate driving force since we met, including moving to St. Louis in 2022 with the company and as part of the move, personally driving the lines of insects across the country so we could re-establish our insectary in St. Louis. She serves as our Director of R&D.

• Anirudh “Ani” Eswar joined Agragene to lead quality manufacturing and has since taken on compliance efforts as we move through regulatory testing.  He has played a key role in advancing the mass rearing of pgSIT technology.

• Matt Helms is our Chief Commercial Officer. He previously held a similar role at NewLeaf Symbiotics, and before that spent 18 years at Monsanto in leadership roles, including VP of Global Agriculture Productivity and Global Crop Protection Marketing Lead. His family also grows and markets popcorn on their seventh-generation farm in the St. Louis area!”

FTW: So what problem are you trying to solve for?

BW: “Agragene is focused on tackling the problem of agricultural insects that damage crops and thus reduce yields. Traditional methods, such as chemical pesticides, have many drawbacks including harm to the environment, resistant pests, and health risks to humans and beneficial insects, particularly pollinators.

Agragene's first target species with its technology is the invasive Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) that is creating over $5B in global economic impact to fresh berry (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry) and cherry growers. SWD is extremely problematic as it has a growth cycle of ~25 days resulting in multiple generations of pressure and infestation that impact the growers' crop. Feedback from growers and companies, such as Driscoll's, state SWD is currently the #1 challenge impacting fresh berry production and that SWD populations have doubled in the past 5 years.”

FTW: How do farmers deal with this problem?

BW: “Currently, growers are deploying multiple applications of insecticides in an attempt to manage SWD. The average age of the most widely used insecticides used is 43 years old. Some of the more widely used insecticides have developed resistance by SWD and others are currently being investigated for resistance.”

FTW: So what’s your solution to this challenge?”

BW: “Agragene's technology can enable the scaling and deployment of sterile male insect technology that has multiple benefits across many stakeholders and society:

• Crops are healthier and harvestable yields are higher

• Growers experience less waste and higher profits

• Consumers get better quality food, with no residues

• Our planet isn’t harmed by chemicals”

FTW: Is there anything novel or innovative about your tech?

BW: “Agragene's precision guided Sterile Insect Technique (pgSIT) is an advanced and more efficient version of traditional Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). Unlike conventional SIT, which relies on radiation or chemical sterilization to render insects infertile — often weakening them in the process — pgSIT uses CRISPR-based gene editing to produce sterile male insects without the need for irradiation. This method ensures that the released males are more competitive in mating with wild females, enhancing population suppression effectiveness. Additionally, pgSIT is species-specific, environmentally friendly, and eliminates the need for continuous mass rearing and sterilization infrastructure, making it a more scalable and cost-effective pest control solution.”

FTW: So you’ve solved for Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), what’s next?

BW: “After SWD, Agragene is focused on Olive Fruit Fly, (invasive) Navel Orangeworm, MedFly and potentially Fall Armyworm. Combined, these global insects impact an additional $20B+ of economic impact to producing food crops such as olives, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, fruits, and row crops. Navel Orangeworm is a pest that industry groups have reached out to Agragene seeking our focus for a solution to address nut crops impacts in almonds, pistachios and walnuts. MedFly also has similar characteristics to SWD and is a global pest impacting multiple fruit and vegetable crops.”  

FTW: Is this something you can patent?

BW: “Agragene's use of Precision Guided Sterile Insect Technique (pgSIT) is backed by a license from the University of California, Riverside, granting us rights to the technology worldwide for any insect for any purpose.”

FTW: What impact do you think your solutions will have if you manage to scale up in a big way?

BW: “We believe the biggest impact will be pgSIT providing an effective, targeted approach to insect pest reduction. The technology will deliver more consistent control of insect pests such as Spotted Wing Drosophila that will result in increased harvestable yield for growers while reducing the reliance and use of insecticides. If Agragene can boost yields by 1-2% that would be a significant change for the growers.

SWD has been detected in over 30 countries and is a major problem for soft fruit growers globally.  We have had great opportunities to visit with fruit growers and shippers (raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, blueberry, and cherry) in the US and learn first-hand how much effort goes in to trying to limit losses to this one pest. Growers estimate they lose 10%+ yield related to SWD infestation alone, likely closer to 20% when calculating field and cooler rejects.

I believe that companies will begin to look at pgSIT technology as a way to solve these problems versus the traditional R&D that focuses on synthetic chemistry. It currently takes over $300M of investment across 12+ years to bring a new insecticide to the market, and there have been very few new active ingredients discovered and launched into the market the past 30+ years. It is a significant issue for big ag R&D organizations and I believe they will broaden their approaches in these areas going forward.”

FTW: What's the size and growth of this market?

BW: “The global fresh fruit market is experiencing steady growth, driven by increasing health consciousness and demand for nutritious foods. Focusing on the soft fruit segment, which includes berries and other tender fruits, the global market was valued at USD 94.2B in 2023. It is expected to reach USD 174.7B by 2031, with a CAGR of 6.4% from 2024 to 2031.”

FTW: What’s next for you in the coming few years?

BW: “Agragene is focused on moving our first target, KNOCKOUT™ SWD through regulatory approvals in the United States and in Mexico/South America.  We are also preparing for larger field trials once we receive approval from EPA/USDA in the United States.  We are currently working with several insectaries to help scale our sterile insect production to ensure we can meet demand. At the same time, we are starting to build our commercial team and focus on our go-to-market plan which includes building relationships and partnerships with independent crop advisors, growers, fresh fruit companies and others that provide agronomic services and distribution of products to growers. In terms of next pests, we are starting work on several other targets including Navel Orangeworm, Olive Fruit Fly, Mediterranean Fruit Fly, and Colorado Potato Beetle.  With proof of concept, we will start to move these targets through the regulatory process.”

FTW: How much funding have you raised so far? I heard you're currently raising a round, what's the size of it, and will will this new funding enable for you? 

BW: “We have raised $7.2M so far and are currently raising a $5M Series B. The Series B funding will fuel our commercialization efforts with our KNOCKOUT SWD product and enable us to push forward with other pests in the pipeline, like Navel Orangeworm, Olive Fruit Fly, and MedFly.”

FTW: What asks do you have to people reading this article?

BW: “We have just started a $5M Series B raise and are looking for potential investors and partners interested in helping us achieve commercialization of KNOCKOUT SWD and keep positive momentum on our R&D pipeline.”

FTW: If someone reading this want to get in touch with you, what's the best way of doing so?

BW: “I can be reached via LinkedIn and email.”