Finding the few molecules that can be transformed into novel crop protection products among the billions of potential substances is a daunting task. It’s one of the many reasons it can take more than a decade and a couple hundred million dollars to bring a new solution to market. 恩科化学有限公司 通过其专有的 Enkompass 平台使用 DNA 编码库、人工智能和机器学习以及基于结构的设计，目的是减少将新作物投入市场的时间和成本。目标是更快、更有效地为正确的目标找到并选择正确的治疗方法
“We call ourselves a crop health company because we’re trying to use pharmaceutical approaches that have been proven to really speed up the discovery of more sustainable chemistry for crop protection,” explains Jacqueline Heard, Enko Founder and CEO. AgriBusiness Global 与 Heard 进行了交谈，了解该系统的工作原理以及我们何时可以在市场上看到其产品。
AgriBusiness Global：您的网站谈论了一些新方法，保护世界的新方法，支持农民的新方法，养活世界的新方法。你怎么样？
杰奎琳·赫德： It’s essentially the way in which we’ve built our technology platform. We are trying to leverage some of the technologies that are available in the human health space to try to take a more targeted approach. We feel as though you need to understand the biology and take the system into account when you’re trying to design molecules for a purpose. And our purpose is to really create solutions that will help farmers control pests and diseases in the field.
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ABG：据我了解，你们是通过一个名为 Enkompass 的平台来做到这一点的。首先，这个名字从何而来？其次，您能给我们概述一下它是如何工作的吗？
杰赫： DNA 编码库是我们采取以生物学为中心或以目标为中心的方法的关键推动因素之一、关键技术之一。因此，Enko 是以我们库中化学物质的编码 DNA 条形码命名的，它编码有关分子如何合成的信息。
因此，Enkompass 实际上建议该平台是一种指导我们发现的方式，并通过一个技术平台提供更富有成效和更有效的方法，指导您在正确的目的和正确的时间拥有正确的分子属性。
ABG：我读到很多研发公司在其图书馆中查看了数百万种东西，而 Enko 拥有数十亿种东西。所有这些数据从哪里来？
杰赫： We partnered with a pharmaceutical company when we started Enko. Our differentiation is the fact that we focus on the biology or target-based approach to design, really precise, selective, safe chemistry. The libraries are key to be to enabling that approach. And, as you know, typically these large libraries are in the hands of the large R&D companies, and it’s very difficult for a small startup to access these chemical libraries. And so, there was a technology called D and encoded libraries that the pharmaceutical industry started developing. And it’s now pretty much a mainstay of a lot of the big drug discovery platforms.
我们与一家制药公司合作，能够使用和访问他们的技术平台，以更快、更高效和更好的方式开始发现新分子。
我们在这次合作中创办了公司。然后我们意识到，是的，它确实加速了超低成本非常快速地发现更好的起点、优化和开发的方式。我们决定将该平台内部化。现在我们有了内部 DNA 编码库平台。我们拥有所有的知识产权、所有的能力来开发我们自己的适合农业的图书馆。
The best part about it is that now we own the data that’s being generated, which we can use machine learning and AI over the top to be able to expedite things even further as well as dial in the attributes that that we need. For, you know, effective chemistry that’s used out in in the environment.
ABG: Traditionally, research takes a long time more than a decade often to bring a product to market. It can take hundreds of millions of dollars. Part of what you’re trying to do is compress that timeframe, and I imagine the cost.
杰赫： That’s exactly right. And so, really, a lot of what we’ve demonstrated so far is that relative to the incumbents we can reduce the time to get to an effective lead molecule, meaning that it has biological activity. It’s a single molecule ready to go into development in about 75% less time.
That reduces the cost to bring things to the market tremendously. We’re targeting a 9-year development cycle versus the current cycles that are 15 years now for the for the incumbents.
The second part is that the way we do our discovery is such that we can dial in safety and selectivity because we know the target. We know that the target hits a human version of the protein, or it doesn’t. And we design so it does not.
目标存在于蜜蜂等有益生物体中。我们从一开始就确实考虑到了这一点。我们只选择您可以开发安全化学的目标，因为当涉及到在人类、陆地、鱼类、您想要在农场中维持的所有生物体和生物多样性的环境中使用它时，同时对害虫，以便农民能够清除那些降低产量的害虫。
That’s the whole philosophy. And we believe that all of those ways of dialing in that selectivity and safety will increase the rate at which you can register molecules effectively. And so, when you think about, reducing failure rate, increasing the rate at which you can bring safe molecules forward that’s another contributor to the to the value proposition.
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ABG: Okay, I know the company hasn’t been around that long. Where are we in your process? Are we about to bring us something to market? You still have to go through the regulatory process, even if you had something that’s ready, right now.
杰赫： We have a few. Our leading chemistries are herbicides, and so we have a few that have gone through all of the testing and preliminary safety. So, they’re ready to go into Gop regulatory. They’ve been tested on four continents, 200 trials all over the world. We’re very excited about it. It has very good safety profile, and we really believe it is something that is differentiated and will bring resistance breaking to farmers, because resistance has been such a huge issue in the herbicide space as well as insecticides and fungicide. So, it was really targeted to be something that could be used globally for farmers around the world and row crops.
It was targeted to realize there’s a mode of action where, because of its use, resistance is developing. And so, the chemistries that are out there today are less effective. We have really dialed in being able to address that resistance for farmers as one of the key differentiating features of the molecule while being safe for growers and safe for the environment.
ABG: You’re a research company. Are you going to be selling these yourself? Or do you employ your relationship with Syngenta? How will products be brought to market?
杰赫： 我们相信，拥有遍布全球的足迹和分销渠道的合作伙伴对于至少在短期内将我们的产品送到农民手中确实非常重要。随着时间的推移，我们希望能够继续将化学技术推向下游。工具登上农场大门是为了认识到公司的更多价值，但也最终成为可以通过各种不同渠道将自己的产品推向市场的参与者。
ABG：该公司已经通过其技术平台生成了数百种作物保护分子。您如何决定要研究哪些分子以使系统能够同时研究多个问题？
杰赫： It’s a platform-based technology. And so, we have 50 programs ongoing. We have the capacity to discover things very rapidly, and then take a strict prioritization approach to work on the things that look to be the most effective. But the whole process really starts by saying, what are the needs out there? What are the big market needs for growers? Then we look at the system and say, “Okay, if we if we could to solve this problem for a grower?”
Maybe it’s a gap in the pipelines of some of the big players in the space. What would it need to deliver on to be differentiated? Does it reduce leaching resistance, busting – all of the things that we think would make it differentiated, be able to gain share, and would be something, more sustainable, and most importantly, to bring to growers into the world. That’s how we start. We have several product concepts. And then we go and we find target biology that we think can address those specific needs of growers.
That’s where we start our process. So now we have 50 of those, which are targets by product opportunity that we are working on simultaneously. And most of the resources go to the ones that are looking to be the most successful. So, it’s just a constant stage of prioritization. Because of our throughput. Of course, we can also partner with the industry as well as bring our own molecules forward. We have collaborations with Bayer, Syngenta, and Nufarm, and we work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well.
ABG: Can you work with their research departments? If they’ve reached a certain level investigating a product, take what they’ve developed to a certain point, and incorporate it into your system, or are they not compatible that way.
杰赫： Our philosophy around partnering with someone on code development is the more that you can bring the scientists together and collaborate and bring, the knowledge base and the experience of people together – it’s just a win-win. We have very good relationships with our partners. And we’re very open with how we think our pipeline, or our technology platform, can improve what they do, and they in turn help us understand some of their experiences from the past that really help us, a startup company, be better at what we do. It’s really a win-win,
ABG：您现在的重点是作物保护。在过去的几年中，人们更加重视不能预防或消除害虫的植物保健产品。相反，他们正在强化植物，使其能够利用自身的防御能力和周围的微生物组来帮助对抗害虫和其他压力。你的系统可以在那个领域工作吗？
杰赫： It absolutely can. It absolutely can. And it’s one of the indications that we’ve articulated, that we’re moving forward to try to find chemistry that are more like the biostimulants, something that targets a biology in the host or the biology of soil. Microbes that will help them produce important nutrients for plants and crop agriculture. We absolutely have that you know, as a as a target for us going forward. And we think the technology platform that we have is ideally suited for it.
ABG：还有什么其他的事情是我们需要知道的？
杰赫： It’s urgent to take a look at the regulatory paradigm and the regulatory system for registering compounds. It feels like there’s never been a more urgent need to bring new solutions forward to growers. And yet the time to bring products to the market is just getting longer and not getting shorter. And some of it, I think, is not necessarily based on some of the underlying science. It’s a lack of throughput through the regulatory agencies. And so, I would love to just highlight as an urgent opportunity, the increased awareness of the importance of having a regulatory system that can effectively work through some of the backlogs and work through some of the needs of the industry to really expedite new solutions. Getting to farmers’ fields faster.
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ABG：正在开发的新产品将如何适应当前的监管环境？
杰赫： We are fundamentally an AI data company. We see, we’re part of this digital transformation of ag, so if you have sensors that are collecting data, or if you have drones and different application technology for precision applicators, we believe that our solutions and our molecules are going to fit into that system perfectly. And if and could help even catalyze the adoption of new technologies, both in terms of application. But even supercharging biologicals. Where you have a combination of a biologic with a chemistry that can effectively reduce the environmental load of some molecules but improve the effectiveness of having integrated solutions with the idea in mind that working together is a better way to have a positive impact on growers and on the food production system.