Collaboration creates new masterbatch facility to develop long-lasting insecticidal nets

Avient is working together with IVCC, a not-for-profit product development partnership (PDP) based in the UK, to step up the global fight to eradicate malaria and tackle insecticide resistance. Avient and IVCC are creating a new masterbatch production laboratory in Guangzhou, China to support research and development of novel, active insecticide ingredients for long-lasting insecticidal-treated nets (LLINs).

The new facility is expected to be fully operational this summer, and open to current and future innovation projects. It will provide a medium-scale platform for testing and developing masterbatch formulations with insecticides to speed up the process of bringing LLINs to the market. Developing these formulations is imperative to eliminating malaria, as insecticide resistance is making the most widely used formulations, such as pyrethroids, increasingly ineffective. The new facility will also support scale up for those formulations that prove promising.

With extensive global expertise in material solutions to support malaria control, Avient has the capabilities to optimize masterbatch formulations for LLINs to deliver ideal insecticide performance. This includes optimum bio-efficiency and controlled migration of the insecticide to the fibre surface — just enough to kill any mosquito on contact.

Established in 2005 through a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant, IVCC works with industry, funding partners and researchers to develop new public health insecticides for use in LLINs, indoor residual spraying and other vector control tools.