INERA and Bayer Enter Strategic Commercial Partnership to Support Climate-Resilient Agriculture
The partnership will leverage Bayer’s sales network to expand the reach of INERA’s biological crop-nutrition solution, with the potential to support smallholder productivity.
NEW DELHI, India | October 13th, 2026
NEW DELHI, India – October 13th, 2026 : INERA, the agricultural bio-tech arm of Absolute, and Bayer have entered into a strategic commercial collaboration to bring a next-generation, climate-resilient crop nutrition solution to farmers. Developed to enhance nutrient use efficiency (NUE), this solution helps improve soil and plant health.
Absolute’s NIP™ platform is one of the world’s most comprehensive repositories of novel microbes, biomolecules and enzymes, spanning over 35,000 unique strains. These strains have been sourced and characterised from extreme global habitats. Working alongside it, Absolute’s AI platform Nature+™ interrogates biological datasets to predict function, identify promising molecules and proteins, and design candidates. These candidates are then experimentally validated before progressing through product development and field trials. Together, the two platforms take Absolute from discovering useful biology in nature to computationally designing and productizing solutions. Today, they power INERA’s expanding agricultural innovation pipeline that includes RNAi-based biocontrols, advanced peptide-based inputs and AI-discovered bioherbicides, all developed for peak performance and enhanced stability.
Commercial engagement between the two companies has already commenced. Bayer will distribute and market the Inera product across its robust sales network.
INERA has seen early success which is an outcome of its extensive biological field-testing programmes with over 50,000 field trials and farmer demonstrations, spanning more than 100 acres of dedicated trial ground; one of the largest of its scale in India.
Talking about this collaboration, Agam Khare, Founder of Absolute, said: “Indian agriculture is at an inflection point. A changing climate, growing pressure on food security and evolving policy priorities are creating an urgent need for farming solutions that are both sustainable and scalable. At INERA, we are focused on bringing science-led biological solutions that help climate adaptation, enhance nature’s defense mechanisms for pest control, improve soil health, enhance nutrient use efficiency (NUE) and help farmers get more value from every acre. Our partnership with Bayer is an important step to making these homegrown biological solutions accessible to a larger number of farmers.”
Simon Wiebusch, Country Divisional Head, Crop Science Division of Bayer for India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka said, “The challenges facing farmers today require us to look beyond what any one company can deliver on its own. Partnerships that bring together complementary capabilities, technologies and expertise can help accelerate the availability of innovative and more sustainable solutions for farmers. We are pleased to collaborate with INERA, combining their expertise in biological solutions with Bayer’s deep understanding of farmer needs, agronomic capabilities and ability to scale innovation. Together, we aim to translate innovation into practical solutions that enhance productivity, support regenerative agriculture and create meaningful value for farmers.”
The collaboration also reaffirms the accelerating shift towards adoption of agricultural biologicals in India, aligning closely with national priorities like the PM-PRANAM scheme and the BioE3 policy.
INERA currently holds active product licenses in 19 Indian states and maintains a growing presence in the US, Africa, and Southeast Asia, engaging millions of farmers. Through it all, the goal stays constant: creating a regenerative world where people and climate thrive in harmony.
About Bayer:
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. In line with its mission, “Health for all, Hunger for none,” the company’s products and services are designed to support efforts to master major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2025, the Group employed around 88,000 people and had sales of 45.6 billion euros. R&D expenses amounted to 5.8 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.
About Inera:
INERA is the agricultural biotechnology arm of Absolute, focused on translating advances in biology and AI into scalable regenerative solutions for farmers. Its portfolio is designed to improve farm productivity and profitability, strengthen soil and crop resilience, and reduce dependence on conventional chemical inputs. Powered by Absolute’s Nature Intelligence Platform (NIP™) and Nature+™ AI platform, INERA develops technologies spanning microbials, peptides, secondary metabolites, designer proteins and RNAi, which are translated into biostimulants, biocontrols, crop nutrition and seed-coating solutions. INERA has a field-validation network spanning 100+ acres across 10+ agro-climatic zones, with more than 50,000 field trials and farmer demonstrations conducted to date, and is growing international presence across the United States, Africa and Southeast Asia. For more information, go to www.inera.ag
About Absolute:
Absolute is a superintelligence bioscience company building biosolutions across Agriculture, Human Nutrition and Longevity. Absolute’s innovations are powered by its proprietary Nature Intelligence Platform (NIP™) — which houses over 35,000+ unique microbial strains, biomolecules, and enzymes sourced from extreme habitats around the world — along with its Nature Plus™ toolbox which uses AI to interrogate biological datasets, predict function and interactions, identify promising molecules and proteins, and design candidates for specific applications. Together, these platforms form a common discovery and validation engine across the domains in which Absolute operates. Absolute’s agricultural biosolutions business operates under the INERA brand. The company’s work has been recognised by organisations including Mars, Unreasonable Group and Deloitte Technology Fast 50, and Norrsken Impact/100 – 2023 with spotlight on Nasdaq Times Square. Learn more at www.absolute.bio
INERA & Bayer | Strategic Commercial Partnership
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