Congratulations on being recognized among the 10 Fabulous Companies of 2025! What does this honor signify for you and your team at INBIOAR SAS?

INBIOAR is a team of cohesive people with passion for the work they are doing. Our work is the expression of our professional capacity to start from scratch to work with global companies. Your recognition reaches us in a great moment where we are transferring our technology to global companies. It is a high honor that makes us feel very proud of what we are doing.

INBIOAR is known for its innovative approach to botanical research and sustainable agro-solutions. What was your founding vision, and how has it evolved over the years?

We started under a single observation in the field that is a very old concept. Since the original farmers in Egypt that used plants to keep away pests until today, the crop protection industry has evolved. We are using the old concepts to find the best plants producing key active ingredients to kill weeds. Our original idea was to use natural molecules as a frame to work with. We planned to modify the original and natural molecules to improve their efficacy. The industry and the market changed to the use of more natural molecules instead of those modified. Thus, our work was more challenging since natural does not mean effective. We had to find not only natural but also effective molecules, and that was very difficult. We were aimed at developing a discovery platform that helped us to do our work. Now with the platform fully developed, we are planning to apply our work in new regions/countries.

What sets INBIOAR apart from other biotech and agri-research companies in the global marketplace?

We have our own discovery platform. That makes us unique in the world in doing bioprospection of plants as a source of natural compounds for the crop protection industry. We can use our discovery platform to find specific active ingredients to kill weeds but not crops. We found an active ingredient to kill Maize RR but not Soybean RR. Here in Argentina the maize RR is a “weed” in the soybean fields. That specificity was found in just one year. A fast and very selective method to find natural killers of weeds is what our discovery platform is.

Could you please walk us through your flagship products or solutions and how they are impacting sustainable agriculture today?

We have found (our Ph.D. student did, really) an active ingredient that works progressively as glyphosate does. It is a 100% natural molecule that kills the weeds with just one application. Natural means biodegradable. We do not know how much time the environment needs to degrade the natural molecules, but we assume it must be done very soon. Thus, we have a bioherbicide active ingredient prototype that will be used in the farms and will be degraded before the weed is dead. I think this is our ideal of natural molecules as active ingredients for bioherbicides.

How do scientific innovation and environmental responsibility intersect in your company’s approach to product development?

There is not another way. In our company we work only on those active ingredients that come from nature. We support this idea, thinking that the natural will be degraded after the active ingredient does its work. It makes no sense that an active ingredient remains in the soil longer after its effect. The synthetic chemicals remain in the soil and move with the dust everywhere. The toxicity remains in the particles of soil, and the contaminations reach even our daily clothes. Our concept is that once the pest is killed, then the active molecule must be degraded.

What challenges have you faced in bridging scientific research with commercial application, and how have you overcome them?

It seems at first glance that scientific research and commercial applications are different scenarios. But they do not. Scientific research is a tool. The commercial growing requires tools to grow the capital. Thus, the scientific research in specific areas matches perfectly. We use our know-how to find what the industry requires to improve their weak points. In the crop protection industry, one weak point is the toxicity in the farms. Thus, we found the solution.

How does INBIOAR work with farmers, agricultural businesses, or other stakeholders to implement your botanical solutions at scale?

Listening to all of them. The discovery is the first step in the long chain of commercial development. The scaling up is a bottleneck that must be overcome to reach the market. There is no good discovery if we cannot produce it. There is not good production if the cost is high. The discovery is the spark or a process, but the way to the market needs a lot of good ideas to overcome all the barriers. Farmers are always helpful with us bringing new ideas or problems to be solved. Many times, they are not big problems, but the idea is to work with them and listen firsthand to the real problems that agriculture has today. We must be there to be more efficient at the time to offer our solutions.

As a leader in biotech innovation, how do you stay ahead of trends and ensure continuous research and development within your organization?

It is very, very, very important to listen to the farmers. They are the creators of the questions and the problems. We are the people who offer solutions they test. If they think what we do is fine, then be sure that our work is great. The key point here is the conversation with the farmers to know at the very beginning which are the problems they are facing. INBIOAR has sense since they have problems to solve and technologies to give them progress in agriculture. A safer and cleaner agriculture is possible if we can support it with natural products.

What role do global collaboration and regulatory alignment play in the company’s growth strategy?

The global solution of a naturally tested product requires, at the end of the day, a big company to make it worldwide applicable. The strategy we have is to work closely with the top agrochemical companies. We offer them what we already know is useful. We tested first in the field so that thereare only a few questions before they adopt the technology. A solid result is always welcome in any company.

What are your goals for INBIOAR over the next 3 to 5 years, and how do you envision your impact on the future of sustainable agriculture and biotech?

INBIOAR may be the next global supplier of natural products for the crop protection industry. We plan to repeat our work in different regions. For us, different regions mean different natural sources of molecules. At the end we will have better and different active ingredients to control pests in the field. That makes us smarter at the moment to offer solutions in the crop protection industry. Natural, efficient, effective, and cheap-to-produce active ingredients are the next steps we expect to find in different regions worldwide.

Organization Name: INBIOAR SAS
Website: https://inbioar.com/
Established: 2010
Highlighted Leader: DR. GUSTAVO M. SOSA
Workplace Address: Centro, Santa Fe