Biotalys unveiled the promising results of its latest field trials with its biocontrol Evoca™. In 2021, an extensive program of 150 trials was conducted to further support the regulatory dossier for Evoca in the EU, and to refine commercial positioning of the product in the US. The trials showed that, when applied at the flowering stage in a Botrytis control program in grape, Evoca consistently outperformed a leading chemical fungicide.

This demonstrates Evoca's potential as a pivotal tool to fight Botrytis, a costly and often devastating fungal disease. Based on data from the latest trials in grapes across vineyards in diverse climates throughout California and New York, Evoca provided excellent preventative control of Botrytis bunch rot in grapevines. The efficacy trials assessed applications for wine/table grapes at flowering, bunch closure, and veraison (respectively applications A, B, and C in the image below).

When substituted for a leading chemical fungicide at the flowering stage in a commercial “gold standard” chemical fungicide rotation, Evoca provided significantly more control of Botrytis in grapes at harvest. Indeed, the Evoca program suppressed severity of bunch rot symptoms by approximately 73% when compared to untreated bunches, versus only 54% for the rotation program with only chemical fungicides. Building on these findings, Biotalys has already progressed with additional trials to also explore at-flowering sprays within IPM programs in berries, cucurbits and tomatoes as the company continues to deepen its field trial data from around the globe.

In addition, Biotalys has demonstrated that wine grape juice quality, vinification or wine characteristics exhibited no differences for Evoca-treated vineyards when compared to non-Evoca treated vineyards. Samples from Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, and Merlot vineyards treated with Evoca at various stages of the grape lifecycle were subjected to nearly 50 different analytical laboratory analyses in accordance with industry standards. These results were jointly reviewed and validated by the Manager of Technical, Environmental, and International Affairs and the Analytical Lab Manager of a major California wine producer, thus demonstrating Biotalys' ability to offer the wine industry an innovative new solution that protects vineyards while ensuring the quality of the fresh produce and derivatives.

A novel protein-based biofungicide developed on Biotalys' AGROBODY Foundry™ platform, Evoca helps control fungal diseases such as Botrytis in fruits and vegetables. Demonstrating strong performance across more than 600 independent and company-driven field and greenhouse trials across multiple regions, climates, soil types, production types, pathogen pressure and crops to date, Evoca is on track to obtain approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) later this year, while in the EU regulatory approval is expected by the end of 2024. This will pave the way for Biotalys' pipeline of product candidates, which includes biofungicides, biobactericides and bio-insecticides.