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A common theme during last week’s BASF conference was the challenging regulatory regime.
BASF's head of technical management for northern Europe Rob Gladwin gave a rundown of some of the key actives which are up for renewal in the coming years from the BASF portfolio and an overview of new chemistry on the horizon.
Key actives up for renewal
Pesticide active ingredients are registered in Europe for 10 years. Thereafter, their authorisation needs to be renewed.
The process is foreseen to last 30 months. However, renewal processes are frequently delayed.
In those cases, the expiry dates need to be prolonged until decision making is concluded. This is the case for epoxiconazole and metconazole.
Epoxiconazole (found in Adexar, Ceriax, Gleam, Venture Extra, etc) registration was originally due to expire at the end of 2019, but this has since been extended to April 2020.
Metconazole (found in Librax, Caramba, Gleam, etc) expiration of approval was originally set for 2018, but has since been extended until April 2020, with a positive feeling around progress through the process.
Support
BASF is supporting both these active substances through the review and are making every effort to respond to any issues raised that might interfere with their renewal in Europe.
Fenpropimorph (found in Opus Team, Corbel, Jenton, etc) will expire on 30 April 2019. BASF didn´t apply for renewal.
As a consequence, the products containing this will need to be phased out after this date, with last sales by BASF Ireland and distributors on 30 October 2019, with a further 12 months for use on farming ending on 30 October 2020.
Richard was quick to add that change in Europe is continuous and these dates are always subject to change.
New products on the market
BASF’s Steven Whittaker gave us a glimpse into the new chemistry and products coming down the line for the company.
It comes as no shock that agri-chemical companies are having to jump over increasingly stringent regulatory hurdles when re-registering existing chemistry.
These hurdles are amplified when attempting to increase any form of new chemistry to the market and, for that reason, the European share of new actives being registered across the world has fallen from 31.3% between the period 1990 to 1999 to 16.4% between 2005 to 2014.
Steven explained that the new Revysol era is just around the corner.
The fungicide active ingredient from the isopropanol azole chemical class is due to enter the Irish market in early 2020.
New products
In the years following the introduction of Revysol, Steven remarks that a new fungicide Pavecto, which is a sub-group of the QoI family, is due to come to the market, but gave away few details.
Another product in the pipeline is the cereal herbicide Luximo, due to the market post-2021.
Many of these will be partner products in co-formulations in order to protect the chemistry.
Brexit woes
Seldom will a conference pass these days without reference to the ongoing political saga in the UK.
Rob explained that in the event of a deal being reached, the UK would enter an implementation period whereby it would become a rule taker and have no say with regard to EU pesticide legislation, but would still have to comply with it.
However, after that period, the UK would be free to implement its own pesticide policies.
In the event of a no-deal Brexit, then the current EU pesticide regulations would be adopted into UK law.
In any eventuality, the change in dynamics around pesticide legislation, and in particular the voting procedure for pesticide approval with the UK out of the EU, would most likely have a negative impact on the pesticide approval regime.
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