Credit dew to Eden Research

Eden Research is a ‘virtual company’ employing five people in the tiny hamlet of South Leigh, near Witney, which is the home of deputy chairman Ken Brooks, one of the founders of law firm Brook Street Des Roches. Perhaps its cleverest innovation is that its products will encapsulate the plant oils – chemicals called terpenes – inside yeast cells, in such a way that their disease-fighting ability is re-awakened by the morning dew, or rainfall. Despite this poetic process – and being named after the first garden paradise – Eden Research envisages that its products can be used in conventional farm sprays, manufactured and distributed by giant agri-chemical companies. Chief finance officer Alex Abrey said: “We are not doing any manufacturing or distribution. That will be done by our partners, using our technology.”

The first product on sale is expected to be marketed as a dog shampoo by Teva Animal Health, owned by life-science giant Bayer, with a flea and tick product to follow. Mr Abrey said: “We have already received licence fees by selling our technology and we will receive three to five per cent royalties as products come on stream. “Our products are environmentally friendly. While that is good, they need to be just as effective and cost no more than traditional, commercial products. If they are effective and cost-effective, people will keep using them.”

The dog shampoo is a mixture of four different terpenes, including thymol extracted from thyme and eugenol extracted from cloves, and is expected to have ‘some biocidal effect’, said Mr Abrey. Other products include a treatment for the grapevine disease botrytis, which can be used close to harvest without the risk of residue harming consumers, while traditional chemicals take 14-21 days to disappear. A similar product is aimed at combating nematodes, a major agricultural pest. Applications for cosmetics, fragrances and food flavourings could follow. The company has been through several different guises, but Mr Abrey believes that it is now well on the way to break-even. In its first incarnation, called Energiser, it aimed to develop a phytoestrogen treatment for cancer.

Energiser changed focus and renamed itself Ximed, setting up a lab at Harwell which started to work on terpenes, but did not have the ‘encapsulation’ technology. Ximed employed more than 20 scientists directly — unusual in a sector which normally commissions work from contract research organisations. But after Ximed failed to find long-term funding, the lab was closed in 2000 and the intellectual property passed to Eden, which then acquired a patent from US scientist Prof Gary Ostroff, who had perfected the technique of using yeast cells as carriers.

Mr Abrey said: “Ximed did lots of work but were not really commercial. They had very good data on a head-lice lotion, which killed the eggs, but they never got to the next stage. The way forward is to find a commercial partner to do trials. They didn’t have the money or the right partner, but we now have one.” Eden has sold the head lice patent to Phytalexin, set up by David Taylor, a co-founder of Kerris Pharmaceuticals, the company that developed Hedrin, which has 40 per cent of the UK market. Eden’s chairman, former NFU president Ben Gill, said: “It should be possible to create a novel, attractive, effective and naturally derived product, which we believe is important, given that it will be mainly applied on children.”

Earlier this year, Eden moved to the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange, where it is valued at £13.9m, with investors including the pension fund of UK universities. The company invested £12m in developing and protecting its patents and so far revenues have been modest – £100,000 in 2012 and £200,000 in 2011. But Mr Abrey is upbeat, though reluctant to put a date on when Eden might break even. He said: “Next year should be a good year. It should be the turning point. Contact: 01993 862761 Web: www.edenresearch.com