How Beauveria bassiana became the keystone tool for bed bug management

Biopesticides based on entomopathogenic fungi have been successfully commercialized and adopted as components of IPM programs in agriculture and horticulture in the US and worldwide. However, the development and use of these biopesticides in urban pest management has been far less widely explored. Aprehend is a biopesticide for controlling and preventing bed bug infestations based on an oil formulation of Beauveria bassiana. The development process for Aprehend included formulation and product optimization, customer discovery, business model development, understanding pest biology, determining value propositions, company establishment, product registration, and commercialization. When Aprehend was launched in 2017, the product had never been applied in the field due to regulatory restrictions. The most crucial element in our commercial success was close collaboration with the product's early adopters and academics in urban pest management to fine-tune the use protocols to ensure they fit within IPM practices while also addressing the economic demands of the pest management industry. Seven years on, the industry has embraced Aprehend as the go-to product for bed bug management. More importantly, the recommended protocols for using the product have resulted in a noticeable increase in the understanding and implementation of IPM in commercial bed bug management.