Laurent de Crasto

FOUNDING PRESIDENT OF IMMUNRISE BIOCONTROL, FRANCE

He is an agricultural engineer specialising in viticulture, and has created several industrial companies.

A graduate of Sup Agro Montpellier, he worked at INAO in Paris, then in 2007 created WIT France, a company specialising in small-volume wine packaging (15 employees, €2m turnover in 2016).

In 2011, he co-founded VDLV (90 employees, €8m turnover in 2018) which develops E-liquids based on natural flavours, a leading company on the French market.

In 2015, he and Lionel Navarro created Immunrise, a company specialising in the research and development of biotechnological solutions. In 2016, Immunrise's biocontrol subsidiary was created in Pessac and focused its research on marine microorganisms to treat plants.

Immunrise

Immunrise is an independent French biotechnology company, which aims to develop innovative biocontrol solutions for crop protection.

The conceptual approach initiated by its founders at the time of its creation is to identify marine microorganisms of agronomic interest. This simple and direct approach required long and tedious research and selection of microorganism strains, which were carried out by Dr Navarro's laboratory, of which Immunrise is the spin-off.

Orientée vers la recherche de solutions de biocontrôle et l’identification de stimulateurs de défenses naturelles des plantes, la société Immunrise a développé avec le laboratoire du Dr. Navarro des outils issus des biotechnologies susceptibles d’identifier des composés d’origine naturelle.

mmunrise's know-how is based on two key areas of expertise, which are the foundations of its R&D projects :

1. An in-depth knowledge of the mechanisms governing RNA silencing
2. A systemic approach to marine microorganisms, whose genetic resources are still poorly understood and little exploited