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The off-patent crop protection company Life Scientific today opened their new state of the art laboratories and offices in Dublin today. The Irish Farmers Journal were invited to attend the opening and get a tour of their new laboratories located in Belfield.
The company employs 60 people in Ireland and is well-established in France and the UK. They specialise in reverse engineering off-patent crop protection products and bringing their own versions of the product to market.
With the use of sophisticated technologies in their new laboratories such as spectroscopic and chromatography techniques, they identify, separate, quantify and reconstruct the chemical makeup of off-patent agri chemical products to develop their generic version.
Off-patent products
The advantages of developing off-patent products is that the regulatory requirements and the costs associated bringing these products to market is significantly reduced, as is the timeframe. This translates to a reduced product lead in time for the growers and in general a lower cost when compared to mainstream products.
The company was started in 1995 by founder and CEO Nicola Mitchell. In 2014, French-based Invivo acquired a 50% stake in the then NoveUCD-based company. Last year they sold over 2m litres of agri chemical products.
A full report will be available online in the coming week.
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