Pesticides are always a compromise: if you kill the mosquitos, you end up killing the bees too. Pyrone discovered a rare natural compound that controls mosquitos and other pests not by killing them, but by temporarily stunning them. Already fast-tracked by the EPA and being tested by the USDA in Gainesville, Pyrone is now scaling this compound in their fermentation system with Agile Biofoundry.

Conventional thinking is that synthetic chemistry is cheaper than biology. Pyrone focuses on compounds that biology can produce far cheaper than chemistry. From the same process used for the biopesticide, they can make 7 other products, accessing $40 billion in markets.