The China Mail - PI Industries plans Indian launch of Pioxaniliprole insecticide this rabi season

Indian maize farmers will have another pesticide next month to fight the menace of Fall Armyworm (FAW), a major pest that damage the crop from inside. Agrochemical company PI Industries on Thursday unveiled Pioxaniliprole, a new molecule, and announced its commercial sales in current rabi season from next month. Apart from maize, Pioxaniliprole will also be effective in some pest control in crops like paddy and chillies, the company said.

Though discovery of Pioxaniliprole was made public in July, PI Industries formally announced it as a major achievement to have India’s first agricultural molecule, an anthranilic diamide-class insecticide, and it was a result of its spending of about ₹2,000 crore on overall Research and Development (R&D) since 2014.

Highlighting that 3-4% of its overall spending goes for R&D, the company’s vice chairperson and managing director Mayank Singhal said Pioxaniliprole would also be taken to other countries like the US and Brazil. However, there is no plan to enter China, the world’s second biggest rice producer after India, Singhal said without disclosing any reason for the decision.

Patented molecule

He said: “It is a globally patented molecule. Our focus is that we first launch it in India and then we will be taking it to other parts of the world. We are evaluating in different parts and working on the regulatory frameworks to take it to other geographies of the world.”

Asked on the expansion of Pioxaniliprole in other countries, he said PI Industries’ business model for the last many years has been on partnership model, whether through licensing or manufacturing. “We will be working in a partnership model with some of our partners which are well known to us today. All the partners are willing to take the development works in the different parts of the world,” he said.

Stating that it took about 10.7 years for PI Industries to develop and ready for the launch of a new molecule against 10-12 years globally, Singhal said there are some other products in the pipeline which are under various stages of evaluation.

On the effectiveness of Pioxaniliprole against FAW, he said: “We have done many trials in corn and got some excellent results compared to the products in the market. There were over 5,000 trials and we also engaged with thousands of farmers to get their understanding. We believe this product would pay great value to the corn farmer.”

A.Sun--ThChM