The U.S. EPA says it will review U.S. pesticide patents for claims of potential synergistic effects among active ingredients. Synergistic effects cause the total effect of the ingredients to be greater than the sum of their individual effects.
In a Federal Register notice, the agency is asking for comments on its five-step process, which includes analyzing whether observations of synergistic, or “greater than additive,” effects are statistically significant.
The agency became aware of patents with synergistic claims in 2015, when the Center for Biological Diversity was challenging EPA’s approval of Corteva Agriscience’s Enlist Duo, which contains glyphosate and 2,4-D.
Source: Agropages