Challenge the conventional.
Change the norm.

Aphea.Bio is dedicated to food security and ensuring a safe and healthy food chain. We aim to provide novel science-based solutions to build the agriculture of the future: sustainable, reliable and profitable.

2017

Aphea.Bio was founded in 2017 as a spin-off of the VIB and its partner universities Ghent University and KU Leuven.

+30

Aphea.Bio has more than 30 products in the pipeline for the next years, with the first launch in 2023.

+40

The company can count on a solid & diverse team of more than 40 colleagues from +10 nationalities with scientific and industry experience.

150

Aphea.Bio has a strong management team with more than 150 years of joint relevant experience.

Aphea.Bio is a fully integrated product development company

Opening the untapped microbial space

Crops that only a few address

High-throughput and versatile R&D platform

Rich pipeline in all segments

Broad and high value patent portfolio conferring a major competitive advantage

Diverse & skilled team of scientists and industry professionals

Highly profitable financial forecast: 30 forthcoming product launches

Two biostimulant products close to market

Our Approach

Applied Nature

Inspired by
Microbiology

Over millions of years, plants have evolved close relationships with the microorganisms in their environment. These relationships can be highly beneficial to plants and improve health and growth. Targeted application of microorganisms that engage in these beneficial relationships can boost the fitness of crops in a natural way.

BETTER AGRICULTURE

Sustainable farming
for healthy food

Microorganisms can support plants in different ways, which is reflected in Aphea.Bio's product development strategy. We focus on microbial strains that improve plant nutrient uptake (biostimulants) and strains that protect against disease (biocontrol). Our mission is to provide farmers with innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce fertilizer and pesticide use.

SOLID FOUNDATIONS

Biology meets
technology

Unravelling complex interactions and identifying beneficial microbial strains requires solid scientific insights. To this end Aphea.Bio has developed an innovative R&D platform bundling different technologies in bio-informatics and microbiome mapping, state-of-the-art microorganism culturing, high-throughput crop phenotyping and data analysis.

Technology Platform

Aphea.Bio is in a unique position to deliver novel and powerful solutions to the market because of its innovative research and development platform. The R&D platform bundles several unique technologies which make up a high-throughput pipeline for discovery of new biocontrol and biostimulant products for wheat and maize.

Research &
Development

01 Targeted discovery of
novel and unique strains

Having built a collection of +15k novel and proprietary strains, we open up a previously untapped source of innovation for biologicals that others cannot access. Using highly efficient and fast screening methods we search for candidates fitting our product concepts for biocontrol and biostimulant targets. To identify these hits, various state-of-the art technologies are applied, such as e.g. extensive microbiome mapping to identify specific beneficial plant-microbe interactions or HTP analytical methods. In this way, we possess an abundant pipeline of thousands of discovery hits across our different programs.

Research &
Development

02 Automated assessment
of beneficial effects

Whether looking for the next biocontrol or biostimulant product, in planta validation of activity for our discovery hits is a crucial step in ensuring success. Aphea.Bio is in a pole position to do so, by having developed cutting-edge approaches for assessing activity at an unparalleled precision and speed. Among those are our high-throughput, automated plant phenotyping and AI based disease scoring algorithms. Combining our in-house data mining capabilities and expertise, we evaluate thousands of discovery leads per year and can identify those that really make a difference for the plants.

Research &
Development

03 Field trial
program

A proven target efficacy, delivering solutions that help farmers keep our crops healthy, is the heart & soul of every successful product. With an in-house team of experienced field trial managers as well as scientific experts, we implement an extensive field trial program, starting in the early phases of our pipeline process. In combination with our in-house data management and statistics system, we can perform in-depth analysis of our data and efficiently steer our development process to find the best products for the farmers’ fields.

Research &
Development

04 Production &
Formulation

Having a promising candidate in the pipeline will not get you to the finish line of having a stable and safe product without the ability to produce and formulate. We combine all key aspects of microbiology and focus on developing tailor-made production methods specific to each strain, and finding the ultimate formulation to bring product efficacy to its best. Aphea.Bio can rely on in-house knowledge and infrastructure to do so for a wide range of microbial families, from lab to pilot scale.

Research &
Development

05 Product
Authorisation

Getting a product on the market requires good planning and an eye for potential regulatory challenges. Our approach to developing new products ensures that potential "red flags" are spotted already in the research phase. High-quality data complying with regulatory requirements is generated early in the process, thus allowing Aphea.Bio for an efficient & fast submission of product dossiers to bring our products to the market as soon as possible ‐ on a global scale.

The Team

Isabel Vercauteren

CEO and co-founder

Inge Van Daele

Portfolio & ESG

Steven Vandenabeele

CTO and co-founder

Manuele Ricci

Development

Benoit Lixon

Business Development

Geert Bossuyt

Finance

Ralph Beckers

Strategy

Challenge the conventional.
Change the norm.

2017

+30

+40

150

Aphea.Bio is a fully integrated product development company