Staphyt Featured in the AgroPages 2026 Biologicals Special
The agricultural biologicals market is evolving at an unprecedented pace, bringing exciting new opportunities alongside unique regulatory and agronomic challenges. At Staphyt, we are proud to be at the forefront of this transition, supporting bio-input manufacturers from initial laboratory development to successful field trials and market registration.
To share our expertise on this dynamic sector, our team has contributed an exclusive, in-depth article to the highly anticipated AgroPages 2026 Biologicals Special magazine.
In this publication, our experts break down the critical steps for successfully developing and registering biological products. We explore how to navigate the complex European regulatory frameworks for biocontrol and biostimulants, and how to design tailored field trial protocols that robustly prove the efficacy of living micro-organisms and natural substances under real-world conditions.
Whether you are dealing with formulation challenges, regulatory hurdles, or field performance evaluations, our article highlights how a multidisciplinary approach is the key to accelerating your product’s time-to-market.
Want to learn more about our strategic approach to biologicals?
👉 https://www.agropages.com/magazine/online-373.htm#&gid=1&pid=82
This article was originally published in the AgroPages 2026 Biologicals Special magazine
Addressing formulation challenges in crop productivity: a joint approach from Stepan Agricultural Solutions and Staphyt in EMEA
Global agricultural trends are driving new challenges for crop protection and crop nutrition formulators. With a growing population, urbanization, increasing pressure on resources and rising energy demand alongside climate protection needs, the industry must develop solutions that deliver consistent field performance while improving input efficiency and meeting sustainability requirements.
These evolving demands directly impact formulation development, where achieving consistent performance under real agricultural conditions remains highly complex.
Today, formulators face a range of technical challenges. Ensuring suspension stability and preventing sedimentation over time remains critical for product consistency, while achieving optimal delivery and spreading on leaf surfaces directly impacts field performance. At the same time, maintaining active ingredient stability adds further complexity, as does managing ingredient compatibility within increasingly sophisticated formulation systems.
The regulatory issues that an innovation has to face from regulatory mapping to registration are so often highlighted that they are not even needed to be detailed.
These issues are particularly critical for biological products, where variability and sensitivity to environmental conditions make formulation and regulatory strategy even more demanding. Formulating or defining a registration road map for a UVCB or a microbial is much more complex than for a conventional pesticide for example.
From formulation challenges to Field-Ready Solutions
To address these challenges, Stepan Agricultural Solutions and Staphyt combine their expertise to support customers across the full product development lifecycle.
Stepan Agricultural Solutions brings its Advanced Formulation Services (AFS), placing formulation at the heart of product performance. Stepan collaborates closely with clients, acting as an extension of their team to bring:
- Formulation development adapted to new active ingredients and evolving regulatory environments
- Expertise across both conventional and biological products
- Product development support from concept to commercialization
- Application testing from bench to greenhouse to field
- A strong focus on client collaboration and speed to market
Stepan’s approach focuses on solving key formulation challenges such as sedimentation control, stability optimization, and improved leaf application performance, ensuring that products perform effectively under real conditions.
Staphyt complements this expertise with its capabilities in field validation and regulatory support. Through its global network, Staphyt provides:
- Field trials assessing efficacy and agronomic performance
- Laboratory services including physico-chemical and environmental studies
- Residue and ecotoxicological testing
- Regulatory consulting, including strategy definition, dossier preparation and submission
This combination ensures that formulations are not only well-designed, but also validated in the field and aligned with regulatory requirements.
What Formulators Can Expect in Field Performance?
For formulators, this integrated approach translates into a more controlled and efficient development process. Formulation parameters such as suspension stability, dispersion quality, and leaf surface interaction can be optimized early, while being continuously validated under real application conditions. This reduces the gap between laboratory performance and field results.
It also enables better anticipation of formulation risks, including sedimentation, instability of active ingredients, or loss of efficacy due to poor application. At the same time, regulatory considerations are integrated from the early stages of development, ensuring a sustainable classification and that generated data directly supports registration requirements.
To illustrate this, no one would imagine defining the best formulation but going from a low risk compound to a corrosive classified formulation. No one would imagine defining a regulatory strategy on a product where stability and crop coverage is not ensured. Adding even only 1 co-formulant may trigger additional questions related to REACH or the product risk assessment. That seems obvious but without the combined approach of a regulatory consultant and a formulation specialist these cases already happened before.
As a result, formulators can move from trial-and-error approaches to a more structured, data-driven development process, improving robustness, predictability, and speed to market.
About Stepan Agricultural Solutions Stepan Agricultural Solutions is a global partner to the crop protection and nutrition industries, offering advanced formulation technologies and services that help customers bring innovative, effective, and sustainable products to market. Through Advanced Formulation Services (AFS), Stepan provides end-to-end support, from concept development and formulation design to scale-up and field validation. With R&D and application centers in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, Stepan combines deep formulation expertise with regional insights to solve complex challenges in agrochemical and biological product development. Stepan’s commitment to science, sustainability, and customer collaboration drives its mission to help growers protect and nourish crops more efficiently and responsibly.
About Staphyt Staphyt is a leading provider of regulatory consultancy as well as field and laboratory development services for the agricultural, chemical and biocide sectors. Staphyt teams are established in Europe and Morocco as well as in Brazil and the USA. With a strong commitment to innovation and customer success, Staphyt supports clients in navigating complex regulatory environments and generating high-quality data as well as registration dossiers to bring new products to market. The company’s expertise spans regulatory strategy, field trials, and laboratory studies, enabling a comprehensive approach to product development and market access.
