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VBC-60748

New Mosquito Control To Start Further U.S. Field Trials

Eastern equine encephalitis
As Summer mosquitoes make their annoying presence known, scientists at Valent BioSciences LLC are working on a new pesticide to battle the disease carriers.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently granted Valent an Experimental Use Permit (EUP) to perform further field studies of VBC-60748, a new mosquito space spray targeting pyrethroid-resistant adult mosquitoes. VBC-60748 is the first-ever mosquito adulticide that contains an active ingredient based on a soil bacterium. The active ingredient is manufactured through fermentation and the product would be the first new U.S. adulticide mode of action approved in 50 years. Pyrethroid resistance is a worldwide public health threat that limits the ability to control disease-carrying adult mosquitoes. Resistant mosquitoes spread deadly and debilitating diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus, dengue, yellow fever, zika and others. Disease-vectoring mosquitoes have developed mechanisms that shield them from the insecticidal activity of pyrethroids, one of the most important classes of insecticides for mosquito abatement. Valent BioSciences’ novel adulticide combines three active ingredients and three modes of action to achieve a high level of mortality against these resistant populations across multiple species, as well as against pyrethroid-susceptible mosquitoes. “We launched this project to bring the global vector control community something very specific,” said Jason Clark, Valent BioSciences’ global business manager. “To make it happen, we would need multiple active ingredients to target multiple sites within the mosquito, and they all would all have to ‘play nice’ in one formulation. We believe that we have succeeded and are now focused on the ...