Team:Tec-Chihuahua/Entrepreneurship

Erwinions

Overview

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Our team is aware that bees are vital organisms for life in both the environmental and nutrition spheres. However, we have noticed that various diseases attack the bees in the different stages of their life, which leads to significant economic losses per year in each country since most of these diseases are not treated correctly. We attempt to breach barriers between the beekeeping industry and synthetic biology through a product that meets the needs of beekeepers, it is not harmful to the environment and is available for everyone.

In Mexico, there are no specific products to combat American and European foulbrood; the current treatment methods are severe and not completely effective such as the use of antibiotics which remain in the products derived from bees. The losses of bees due to diseases affect the beekeeping industry directly. Our product arises as an alternative to the current methods for treating this two diseases offering an effective, safe and responsible product that strengthens the immune system of bees.

4 Steps to Effective Customer Problem Solving

Client

Our client is the beekeeper that focuses in the caregiving and massive production of hives, for the national and international sale of products such as honey and its derivatives. These are of high importance for the Mexican economy, not only for the export of honey products but also because of the link between pollinating bees and the agriculture of the country. However, this industry does not receive the attention it deserves, because there are many illnesses that attack them and very few companies that dedicate themselves to prevent or treat them, or even to the development of research about it and how these illnesses affect the world’s economy.

The methods currently used to treat infected hives are antibiotics not specialized in diseases and the hive burning. The method by antibiotics is very controversial since the residues of antibiotics can infiltrate in the final products marketed like honey and propolis. As a consequence, the use of antibiotics has been banned in several countries because of the long-term effects that this could have on the health of consumers.

The current universally accepted method is the destruction and burning of the hive, however, the process ends in multimillion-dollar losses to the beekeeping community.

Problem

The American Foulbrood is an illness caused by a pathogenic bacterium called Paenibacillus larvae, which can be found globally and infects the hives. A single colony of the hive with the infection unrestrained will suffer a significative loss of larvae. Without the new litter to replace the elder workers, the entire colony will be in danger and will probably die. However, some colonies are strong enough to recover from the loss. Besides, there are some colonies, like the colonies of South America or the Africanized bees that can resist the infection of the pathogen. This phenomenon has the characteristic that this colonies usually produce a bigger amount of propolis when compared to the honey bees of Europe.

The European Foulbrood is an illness caused by the pathogenic bacterium, Gram-positive, called Melissococcus plutonius that affects the bee larvae. The genetic resistance of some bee species to the illness allows them to overcome the infections without suffering severe damages. However, it must be mentioned that it generally has a better forecast than the American Foulbrood, in some zones, the European Foulbrood has an even more malignant manifestation, damaging severely even the strong colonies of bees.¹

EFB affects mainly the unsealed babies, which can kill the larvae generally when they are 4 to 5 days old. The infected larvae move around the breeding cell, and instead of the regular rolled position, the larvae die displaced in their cell, twisted around the walls or stretched out. The color of the larvae changes from white to yellow, then brown and finally, when they decompose, black. If a big portion of the larvae dies, the patron of raising seems irregular and sometimes sends an unpleasant or sour smell.²

References

Formato G., Menegotto A., & Jannoni-Sebastianini R. (2012). Loque europea. Retrieved April 12, 2018, from http://teca.fao.org/es/technology/loque-europea
Forsgren, E. (2009, December 21). European foulbrood in honey bees. Retrieved April 12, 2018, from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2009.06.016

Hypothesis

Our product will be a liquid mixture of antimicrobial peptide extracts that will eradicate European foulbrood and American foulbrood, this treatment will be applied in bee bread with the intention that this food reaches infected larvae. As a company, we firmly believe that with this we will achieve the highest quality standards in the product and with this achieve high sales levels a year around the world.

Solution

This product is intended to be a treatment that will improve the immune system of bees to make them more resistant to American foulbrood and European foulbrood of infected hives. This will be achieved by placing our antimicrobial peptides in PLGA nanocapsules, forming a kind of powder solution that will be placed in the liquid food of the hives, usually composed of water with sugar. Showing our product in different editions of sizes, suitable for the client's convenience.

Business Model Canvas

SWOT Analysis

Strengths: Commitment with the environment, novel product in the market, prevents opportunistic diseases, final product quality, practical application, and that is a product specialized for bees.		Weaknesses: Not enough information on the market, and must establish brand, costly production, lack of investors, lack of equipment, lack of experience in the sector.
Opportunities: Few competitors, a need for an alternative to the existing method, high product, demand, and a unattended market concerning scientific research.		Threats: High prices, unfavorable trends in the market, lack of approval by the beekeeping sector, and disloyalty of intermediaries with the client.

Customer Feedback

The months we worked on this project, we had the opportunity to establish contact with different beekeepers and beekeeping societies. We began in the places nearest to our city and expanded to the rest of the country (and the world). Thanks to this we could comprehend their necessities and adapt to these, so our services can be the most comfortable and efficient.

On several occasions, we had the pleasure of talking with the beekeeping association of Cuauhtemoc City, Chihuahua, where we showed them our proposal and received feedback about the characteristics that they search for in a product: efficacy, simplicity in application, good prices, and infrequent application. In the beginning, we wanted to apply the solution as purified peptides either as a liquid or dusted over hives. Nonetheless, when it is dispersed on a hive’s box, it is threatened by foragers, wind or other insects. We decided that the best option was for the product to be added to the bee’s feeders.

During our stance in Delicias, to the IV State Beekeeping Forum, we had the chance to assist to several apiaries, where we approached bees and discovered the real impact of our product. Seeing the working conditions of beekeepers helped us identify the need for an efficient and functional product; any inconvenience in its application would results in hours lost, because of the number of hives kept. In this same way, we established contact with companies that deliver beekeeping products with which we could have a future partnership for national distribution. Beekeepers mentioned in this Forum that they’d like to see our finished project or research in the future.

From Valencia, Spain, we had contact with several beekeepers that commented, based on experience, how these diseases are treated. They told us antibiotics are distributed in the food but it contaminates pollen and makes it inadequate for human consumption, which creates economic losses for apiculture. This is why we decided to use only honeybee-native AMPs, to avoid exportation problems.

Likewise, we were given the opportunity to talk to the Italian Federation of Apiculture, who gave us their unconditional support for the validation of our project, to promote the precise development of our product; we were also assured that they could back commercialization across Italy.

Finally, Chile’s association brought us full support and mentioned they’d be willing to put our product in the Chilean market. Their disposition comes from their interest in fighting these diseases, which invigorated us to keep working on the project.

Experts Guidance

Raúl Lizarraras Durán

During the development of our business plan and the general activities of the entrepreneurship area, we went to Raúl Lizarraras several times in search of advice. Your support has served us since the first day, as it gave us its support to resolve specific questions about specific issues in the business plan. After this, he collaborated with us, providing us with his extensive knowledge in the area to solve questions from the different teams, all of them focused on his expertise area in order to make the most of his support. In addition to helping us in that way, he was in charge of creating contact between us and other experts in business development so that they would support us, like him, with the questions that the teams asked us. Likewise, he supported us when we finalized our business plan, with the intention of making the pertinent corrections to perfect our work.

Luis Miguel Almanza Rueda

Thanks to his constant support, we managed to give an initial sense and structure to our business plan, we organized several meetings with him, always with the intention of resolving specific doubts about important points for the business plan, which at the time were complicated to realize, however, his help facilitated the process to develop them, he gave us suggestions, ideas and his total support in the creation of our business plan.

Ph.D. David de Jong

Thanks to our approach with the Mexican society of veterinarians specialists in bees, especially with MVZ Ernesto Tanus Sánchez, we managed to establish contact with Ph.D. David de Jong, who is an expert in bees and their diseases. His experience was very useful for the development of our product. He, like the MVZ that Ernesto Tanus had mentioned to us, said that if we are going to start a business, we should follow a legislature and we should evaluate the risks that our product involves. We decided to add to our legal section some things that cover those points, to complement our legal plan and add these points to the business plan Also, he was in charge of asking us some important questions, with the purpose that we as a company contemplated if it was feasible, economically speaking, that our product was created and launched to the market, since it made us compare the expenditure of investment in the peptides and the approximate final price of our product.

Mr. Manuel Ramírez Salcido

The salient engineer shared with us his concern about the fact that the government offers very little attention to the apicultural sector, so we came up with the idea that, when our product can be released to the market, to make an agreement with the government, in which This will support us as a Mexican company and beekeepers by creating a program of support for prevention and cure of American foulbrood and European foulbrood, which would consist in the government supporting us economically to develop our company, and thus be able to become international , and in return we would compensate you by granting a certain percentage of our production, so that they can provide free support to beekeepers who suffer from this disease in their hives.

Ph.D. Maria Mercedes Roca

During our video call with Dr. Roca, she mentioned that when we decided to start with our company it would be good if we generated an agreement with a pharmaceutical company that would have the infrastructure to perform the nanoencapsulation, so that we would not have to buy the machinery that is required to carry out this process, we analyze your proposal and for that reason we decided that instead of buying this infrastructure from us, it was a better option to rent it to a company that already did this process, and thus benefit both parties.

Business Plan

Company's Projection

Innovation Week

This was an event held by the Chihuahua Innova program, which is developed by elements of the State of Chihuahua on May 21^th and 22^th, 2018. During the first day, ten speakers presented, which gave lectures on fundamental topics for Entrepreneurship and new companies. Exhibitors of all kinds participated, some were founders of innovative companies, others were government workers and some were experts in business creation and development.

We attend these conferences in order to learn more about the area of entrepreneurship and all that entails the creation of a business plan, because although we had already started with ours, our knowledge was practically null about how to do it, so we hoped that this event would provide us with key factors, ideas and basic knowledge required to make our business plan, we wanted to learn more about the business world and meet important people in that area.

This activity was very helpful because, first of all, because in this event we met important people, such as the IMPI Research Coordinator, and some important people from the Government, as well, we got to know important issues such as innovation, the development of patents and its process, the support provided by the government to entrepreneurs. During this activity I learned about the types of patents that exist, how to apply, the price and the duration of these, I also learned to sell an idea in the right way and the best way to create digital marketing.

This event was very helpful as a guide to continue with the creation of our company since it provided us with knowledge and resources that were fundamental to understanding the business world.

Training Day

In order to celebrate the biotechnologist day, the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Chihuahua campus decided to hold an event called "Training Day", during the event, a conference was given with the name "5 steps to undertake biotech", the speaker of the conference was Larissa Uribe Marioni, co-founder of Diagtech, a Molecular Research and Diagnostic Center dedicated to the detection of specific genetic indicators for the prevention of the development of diseases based on genes, as well as research and development of new diagnostic methods.

This conference, as its name says, told us about the 5 most important points to undertake in the biotechnology area; find a real problem, generate a scalable idea, contemplate and find the right infrastructure, seek the help of mentors and experts in biotechnology, and finally, choose a good team.

These 5 steps should be considered in their entirety to achieve a successful biotechnology company, so for us, it was very helpful for the development of our company's business plan, and it helped us maintain contact with Larissa and her team. work, who were of great support for the development of our activities in the area.

Thanks to the knowledge we acquired, we were able to give a better approach to our business plan, because we could better understand the operation of companies in the biotechnology area, and we were able to understand the difference between a company in any other area and a biotechnology company.

Team:Tec-Chihuahua/Entrepreneurship

Overview