Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen

Vestergaard is a Swiss- and United States-based social enterprise that develops and manufactures insecticide-treated fabrics for public health and agricultural pest control. Its health innovations include the PermaNet product line of long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets, widely used in malaria elimination programs, and Tiny Targets, which reduce the transmission of sleeping sickness by the Tsetse fly. In agriculture, the company has adapted its insecticidal netting technology for commercial crop protection in the U.S., as well as developing ZeroFly grain storage bags, to enhance food security in low- and middle-income countries.

Founded in 1957 as Vestergaard Frandsen, the company is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, with research and innovation led from the United States. Global manufacturing operations are based in Vietnam with local manufacturing in Nigeria through Health Textiles Nigeria FZE. Entomological research and testing is carried out at the Vestergaard-Noguchi Vector Labs in Ghana.

The company began as a uniform maker and evolved into a social enterprise making products for humanitarian aid in the 1990s. It is also known for inventing the LifeStraw water filter (now a separate company).