Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
September 24, 2018
Ben brings extensive commercial agricultural leadership experience to Vestaron as it launches its SPEAR® family of insecticidal peptide products
Vestaron, a company dedicated to improving the safety, efficacy and sustainability of crop protection through migration from chemical pesticides to biologic peptides, today announces the appointment of Ben Cicora as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. With more than fifteen years of commercial experience across large and small agricultural companies, Ben will lead the build-out of Vestaron’s commercial team and commercialization of Vestaron’s growing portfolio of bioinsecticides.
“It is exciting to join the Vestaron team, with its many years of industry experience, and to be part of the initial commercialization of a revolutionary line of biopesticide products”, said Ben. “We are looking forward to bringing these new solutions to the growers who desperately need effective and sustainable technologies to safely control insects in their production”
Having overcome key challenges related to production, bioavailability and regulatory approval, Vestaron has recently brought to market SPEAR®-T, its first bioinsecticide, for control of the top four major greenhouse pests – thrips, aphids, whiteflies and mites. Vestaron has also just announced EPA approval of its second product in the SPEAR® family – SPEAR®-Lep for control of lepidopteran pests for fruits, vegetables and other specialty field crops. Vestaron expects to continue to expand this first family of products and has multiple additional families of bioinsecticides in development. Vestaron’s peptide-based products are able to match the efficacy of traditional synthetic insecticides while having the safety and sustainability profile of biologics.
“With the Spear family of products, Vestaron is bringing sustainable technology to the market and growers will now have an additional rotational tool to use into the future.” said Ben.
“In Ben, Vestaron has found a proven commercial professional with the vision to understand and experience to help realize the revolutionary potential of its technology,” said CEO Anna Rath. “We are thoroughly excited to have him as a part of the team and look forward to his leadership in shaping and advancing Vestaron’s commercial strategy.”
About Vestaron
Vestaron is a company dedicated to improving the safety, efficacy and sustainability of crop protection through displacement of chemical pesticides with biological peptides. Vestaron is initially focused on a class of peptides that kills insect pests efficiently, but is safe for humans, birds, fish and the environment. As part of this, the company has developed fermentation-based peptide production and insect resistant crop platform that will allow it to develop a wide variety of biologic crop protection and trait products. Vestaron is the winner of the inaugural 2015 Bernard Blum Award for novel biocontrol solutions.
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