In2Care is a young and dynamic company founded in 2011 by Anne Osinga, Bart Knols, Marit Farenhorst and Remco Suer, as a research institute that aims to utilise its scientific expertise to develop, re-engineer and validate control products against disease-transmitting insects.
Several important human diseases (like Dengue, Lyme disease, yellow fever, Leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness and malaria) that are transmitted by insects, affect the lives of millions of people and cause high mobidity and impede economic development in several countries, particularly developing countries in the (sub) tropics. Many insect vectors, such as mosquitoes, ticks and flies, are difficult to combat and are becoming increasingly resistant to the currently used chemical insecticides. There is thus an enormous need for low-cost, effective and more sustainable control products against disease-transmitting insects.
At present a huge gap exists between knowledge generation at academic and research institutes and the valorization of that knowledge by industry. Many scientific discoveries and innovations that have potential to improve insect control measures. Unfortunately however, most academic research ends in scientific publications and is not valorised; i.e. translated into useful and commercially viable products that can actually benefit the public and improve global health. Last year, for instance, there were more than 3000 malaria research articles published in scientific journals, but in the field people still have to fight mosquitoes with old-fashioned bednets and chemicals such as DDT (that has been around since 1939!).
In2Care aims to utilize its scientific expertise to translate the latest research findings into novel and sustainable insect control products/processes that can be useful and cost-effective in disease-endemic countries and can have a real impact on global health.