CDTI Supports PLANeT Biotech's Commitment to Precision Biostimulants for More Resilient Agriculture

Interview with Ana I. Caño-Delgado, CEO and Co-founder of PLANeT Biotech: “The support of CDTI Innovación is enabling us to accelerate the development of precision biostimulants for more resilient agriculture”

The spin-off of the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) is advancing, with the support of CDTI Innovación through the NEOTEC program, a proprietary platform for developing next-generation biostimulants capable of helping crops respond better to drought, heat, and salinity.

Water scarcity, extreme temperatures, and soil salinity are part of the reality faced by many farmers. In an increasingly demanding climate context, the challenge is not only to produce more but also to maintain crop productivity and quality when conditions are unfavorable.

This is the environment in which PLANeT Biotech operates, a technology-based company founded as a spin-off from the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG). As the company’s CEO and co-founder, Ana I. Caño-Delgado, explains, “PLANeT Biotech was created to bring our scientific discoveries on how plants adapt to drought and other environmental stresses into the field.”

After two decades of work in plant biotechnology, the team saw an opportunity to transform this knowledge into practical tools for the agricultural sector.

Bridging the Gap Between the Laboratory and the Field

Over the years, plant molecular biology has greatly improved our understanding of how plants detect stress, which mechanisms they activate, and how they attempt to adapt. However, turning that knowledge into products that reach farmers is not always straightforward.

The need to bring research closer to practical agriculture was one of the main reasons behind the creation of PLANeT Biotech.

“Agriculture faces the challenge of producing more food with less water and under increasingly variable climatic conditions,” says the CEO. After more than 20 years studying how plants perceive and respond to stress, the challenge became converting that knowledge into practical solutions. “PLANeT Biotech was created precisely to bridge that gap and put science at the service of agriculture,” summarizes Caño-Delgado.

With support from CDTI Innovación through the NEOTEC program, the company is advancing the development of a new generation of biostimulants based on solid scientific foundations and designed to address specific needs within the agricultural sector.

Science and Technology for a New Generation of Biostimulants

PLANeT Biotech’s approach represents a new generation of biostimulants that seeks to bring greater precision and scientific traceability to agricultural solutions.

“The main difference is that our products are built on an understanding of the biological mechanisms that enable plants to tolerate stress. We do not work through trial and error; instead, we start from specific physiological processes that we understand and can modulate,” explains Caño-Delgado.

This approach allows the company to develop products with a defined mode of action, an especially important factor when transferring technology from the laboratory to real crop-growing conditions.

“Our goal is not only to obtain a positive response in the plant but also to understand why it occurs and how to optimize it under real cultivation conditions,” she adds.

For PLANeT Biotech, understanding the mode of action is not merely a scientific issue. It also helps guide product use more effectively and provides greater confidence to farmers, distributors, and regulators.

EARTH: Activating Plant Resilience Mechanisms

One of the company’s core assets is EARTH, its proprietary molecular discovery platform. Based on plant physiology and inspired by certain approaches used in pharmaceutical development, it has been adapted to the agricultural sector.

“The EARTH platform stems from a very simple idea: if we know how a plant survives drought, we can search for molecules capable of activating those mechanisms in a controlled manner,” explains Caño-Delgado.

This approach makes it possible to develop solutions that are more precise and reproducible. Furthermore, PLANeT Biotech’s technology activates plant defense pathways without modifying the genome or relying on uncharacterized extracts.

From a scientific perspective, this allows work to focus on known mechanisms. From a market perspective, it responds to growing demand for evidence-based solutions.

“Farmers want to know what they are applying, how it works, and what results they can expect. Our approach addresses precisely that need for rigor, transparency, and effectiveness,” says Caño-Delgado.

Ndavant: Solutions for Crops Under Stress

PLANeT Biotech’s first products are being developed under the Ndavant brand and are designed to help crops maintain productivity and quality when exposed to adverse conditions such as drought, high temperatures, or salinity.

For the company, agricultural resilience means more than simply surviving a stress event. The challenge is ensuring that crops continue producing when water is scarce, when water quality deteriorates, or when environmental conditions become more demanding.

“Agricultural resilience is not just about withstanding drought; it is about maintaining crop productivity and quality when water is scarce or of lower quality and when environmental conditions become more challenging,” explains the CEO and co-founder.

PLANeT Biotech’s products are designed to optimize water use and sustain performance under real stress conditions. This is particularly relevant in intensive production systems such as Mediterranean greenhouses, where even small variations in yield can have significant economic impacts for growers.

“Rather than protecting plants against a single stress factor, we aim to improve quality and yield in increasingly demanding production environments,” adds Caño-Delgado.

The NEOTEC Boost

For PLANeT Biotech, support from CDTI Innovación through the NEOTEC initiative comes at a particularly important stage. The company is moving from research and initial validation into a phase that requires strengthening its team, advancing agronomic and regulatory validation, and preparing its commercial strategy.

“The support from CDTI Innovación through NEOTEC has been crucial in accelerating our growth,” highlights Caño-Delgado.

The funding is enabling the company to “strengthen internal capabilities, expand the team, advance the agronomic and regulatory validation of our products, and prepare for their commercial launch.”

Beyond the financial contribution, the company also values the recognition that comes with the support.

“For a scientific spin-off like ours, it represents recognition of the innovative potential of our technology and helps reduce the risks associated with the early stages of business development,” she emphasizes.

In this sense, the project illustrates the role of programs such as NEOTEC in supporting technology-based companies during a decisive phase: transforming research results into market-ready solutions.

Bringing More Science to the Field

Looking ahead, PLANeT Biotech aims to expand its product portfolio, reach new crops and markets, and establish itself as a leading company in plant resilience.

“We want to continue transforming scientific knowledge into useful solutions for agriculture,” says Caño-Delgado.

For the company, the future of agriculture will increasingly depend on incorporating science-based tools capable of addressing real challenges in the field.

“We believe agriculture will increasingly require science-driven innovation to adapt to future production conditions, and we want to contribute to that transformation by bringing effective, sustainable, and research-backed solutions to the field,” she concludes.

With the support of CDTI Innovación, PLANeT Biotech continues along this path: transforming years of research in plant biotechnology into products that help crops better respond to an environment that is already changing.

CDTI Innovación

The Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation (CDTI E.P.E.) is the innovation agency of Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Its objective is to promote technological innovation within the business sector.

CDTI’s mission is to ensure that Spanish companies generate and transform scientific and technological knowledge into globally competitive, sustainable, and inclusive growth. In 2025, within the framework of its 2024–2027 Strategic Plan, CDTI provided €2.423 billion in support to Spanish companies and startups.