Our Solution

OUr Solution

Oxitec’s Friendly™ solutions provide a safe, targeted, environmentally sustainable solution for controlling mosquitoes. 

 A Friendly™ mosquito is already proven against the dengue fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, suppressing populations of this invasive pest by more than 95% in urban communities in Brazil. In 2022, Oxitec launched this Friendly™ Aedes aegypti product in Brazil, where it is now serving households, communities and businesses nationwide. 

Oxitec has now developed a Friendly™ Anopheles stephensi, which is now in Djibouti for field pilots in malaria-threatened communities.

Oxitec Friendly™ males – which do not bite - carry a self-limiting gene that, when passed on, prevents their female offspring from surviving to adulthood. With regular releases of Friendly™ males, the number of female mosquitoes in subsequent generations is reduced, resulting in a reduction in the pest insect population. Friendly™ males, and offspring carrying the self-limiting gene, can be tracked through the linked marker gene.

Friendly™ males are released

The Friendly™ males mate with pest females

Female offspring do not survive

A Sustainable Solution

+ Precise

Friendly™ male mosquitoes only target their own species. They will not harm other, beneficial insects – unlike some other methods of control.

+ Environmentally Sustainable

Deployment of Friendly™ male mosquitoes does not use any chemicals that are harmful to the environment, and it has no harmful effects on beneficial species.

+ Non-persistent

The self-limiting system means that the self-limiting gene carried by Friendly™ male mosquitoes cannot establish in the ecosystem.

+ Non-toxic

The proteins of the introduced genes carried by Friendly™ male mosquitoes do not produce any toxins or allergens, making them safe for use in any environment.

Friendly™ mosquito technology reduces reliance on traditional insecticides and pesticides and can slow development of pest resistance to insecticides.

Friendly™ mosquitoes are target-specific, non-biting, non-toxic, and self-limiting in the environment.

Oxitec Friendly™ technology has no harmful effects on the ecosystems in which it is applied.

Quick facts

Oxitec’s Friendly™ Mosquitoes

  • Friendly™ mosquitoes (like all male mosquitoes) do not bite. They are safe, non-toxic and self-limiting.

  • The female offspring of released Friendly™ male mosquitoes cannot survive. With sustained deployments, as the number of biting females in the population declines, the population of the targeted mosquito declines.

  • Friendly™ mosquitoes do not pose a threat to humans or the environment, as supported by findings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2016 and by the EPA in 2020 and 2022.

  • More than one billion Friendly™ mosquitoes have been produced for release worldwide, with no negative impacts on people or the environment.

  • More than 100 scientific studies and peer-reviewed papers have been published about Oxitec’s technology, a diverse cross-section of which can be found on Oxitec’s website.