AgroSavfe appoints Patrice Sellès as new Chief Executive Officer and further strengthens leadership team

• Patrice brings over 20 years of leadership experience in the Food and Crop Protection sector
• Luc Maertens appointed Chief Operations Officer
• Significantly strengthened AgroSavfe's leadership team to further support accelerated growth of the Company

GHENT, Belgium, July 02, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AgroSavfe NV, a rapidly growing and transformative AgTech company developing next generation AGROBODYtm-based biocontrols, today announces the appointment of Patrice Sellès as new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In addition, Luc Maertens has been appointed Chief Operations Officer (COO).

Patrice joins AgroSavfe from Syngenta, a leading agriculture company, where he spent more than 17 years in various international executive leadership and scientific positions, as Global Head R&D Strategic Portfolio and Performance, but also as venture investment manager. Patrice held his positions both in Europe and in the US.

Building on the proprietary AGROBODY Foundrytm Platform, Luc Maertens will head the full development of the rapidly expanding proprietary product pipeline as Chief Operations Officer. In this position, Luc will lead the coordination and execution of the Company's programs from product design through to development and regulatory submissions as well as the commercial scale manufacturing.

Lieven De Smedt, Chairman of the Board of Directors, commented: "We are very pleased that Patrice is joining us as new CEO to bring AgroSavfe to the next level in the international markets. He thoroughly understands the Agro Industry dynamics thanks to his 20-year track record in various leadership roles, including portfolio and investment strategy development and execution, and business development. His expertise will be invaluable as we enter an important new phase and are starting to prepare the launch of our first product, expected in 2022."

Patrice Sellès, CEO of AgroSavfe, said: "I am thrilled to have been offered the opportunity to lead AgroSafve at this important stage. Over the past few years, the team has de-risked a unique technology platform and developed a promising pipeline and I am excited to build on this success with our fantastic team in Ghent. I look forward to engaging with our stakeholders and supporting the company in becoming a strong and substantial business for the long term, addressing the many challenges currently facing worldwide agriculture and food production."

About AgroSavfe

The growing demand for healthy, safe and sustainable food has increasingly imposed restrictions on agricultural practices. Therefore, improving food production efficiency in a sustainable way, while safeguarding the environment and its natural resources, is essential.

AgroSavfe has the ambition to contribute to a sustainable production of safe and healthy food. The Company is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of effective and safe biocontrols to tackle plant pests and diseases using its ground-breaking, scalable, proprietary AGROBODY Foundrytm Platform.

AgroSavfe's products are a novel class of biocontrols based on AGROBODYtm bioactive proteins that effectively and selectively target pests' and pathogens' essential molecules. AGROBODYtm bioactives combine the high-performance characteristics of chemicals with the clean safety profile of biologicals, making them ideal crop protection agents for both pre- and post-harvest applications.

Based on its unique AGROBODYtm platform, AgroSavfe has built a versatile product pipeline against key pests and diseases, with the first product expected to enter the US market in 2022. 

The Company was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the VIB (Flemish Institute for Biotechnology) and is based in the biotech cluster in Ghent, Belgium. More information can be found on www.agrosavfe.com.