Corteva has struck a multi-year R&D collaboration with UK agri-tech company Moa Technology to accelerate the discovery of novel herbicides, offering an early indication of how the company’s future standalone Crop Protection business may approach innovation following its planned demerger.
Under the agreement, Oxford-based Moa will combine its proprietary herbicide discovery platforms with Corteva’s crop-protection expertise to identify new modes of action capable of tackling the growing challenge of herbicide-resistant weeds.
The deal is significant not only for its scientific ambitions but also because it highlights a broader shift in Corteva’s innovation strategy.
Historically, Corteva has relied heavily on its own R&D capabilities to deliver new crop-protection products. However, a growing number of partnerships with startups and specialist technology developers suggest the company is increasingly supplementing internal research with externally sourced innovation. That approach has been formalised through initiatives such as Corteva Catalyst, the company’s investment and collaboration platform focused on emerging agricultural technologies.
Targeting the weed resistance challenge
With Corteva preparing to split into two independent publicly traded companies – one focused on Seeds and the other on Crop Protection – the Moa partnership provides a glimpse of the model likely to underpin the future crop-protection business: combining internal scientific expertise with access to breakthrough technologies developed by external partners.
“Moa’s core strength is discovering genuinely novel tools to tackle rapidly evolving, yield-damaging weed threats,” said Dr Virginia Corless, CEO of Moa Technology.
“We’re delighted to be working with Corteva on this project. The more commercial research collaborations we undertake with industry-leading companies, the faster we can accelerate delivery of safe, effective and affordable new solutions to farmers’ fields.”
Ashish Batra, vice president of crop health research and development at Corteva, said the partnership would harness complementary strengths from both organisations.
“We’re excited to collaborate with Moa to advance the discovery of novel modes of action,” he said. “By combining complementary strengths, we aim to leverage Moa’s new approaches in herbicide discovery, and are focused on addressing the evolving challenges farmers face from weed resistance.”
Part of a wider collaboration strategy
The Moa deal is the latest in a series of external crop-protection collaborations for Corteva. The company has worked with Israeli discovery specialist AgPlenus since 2020, with the partners announcing in 2024 the identification of a new herbicidal molecule family featuring a novel mode of action known as APCO-12.
Corteva has partnered with Micropep on peptide-based biocontrol and biofungicide technologies and established a joint venture with Hexagon Bio focused on nature-inspired crop-protection products through the Corteva Catalyst platform. It has also announced a deal with FMC that will expand access to FMC’s rimisoxafen technology across North and South America corn and soybean markets, adding an important new tool to each company’s respective herbicide portfolio.
A signal for New Corteva?
For Corteva, the significance of the Moa partnership extends beyond gaining access to another herbicide discovery platform. As weed resistance continues to spread and the company prepares to separate its Seeds and Crop Protection operations, the deal signals how “New Corteva” may seek to maintain its innovation pipeline: leveraging its own deep crop-protection expertise while tapping specialist startups and university spin-outs for novel technologies.
For Moa, the agreement validates its discovery platform. For Corteva, it may offer an early blueprint for the collaborative innovation model that defines its next chapter as a standalone crop-protection company.
