Brain AG wins award for furthering industrial biotech

The firm - which is based in Zwingenberg near Fankfurt - was named as winner of the European Biotechnica Award for its work in developing biological solutions for a variety of industries including the biopharmaceutical sector as jury chairman Karsten Henco explained.

"Brain stands out for its longstanding, exceptional performance in biologising industries and establishing a bioeconomy via a unique and complex network of international partners along the entire value creation chain​.”

Brain's business is founded on its archive of microbes and bioactive compounds that it uses for a variety of industrial applications as spokesman Martin Langer explained to BioPharma-Reporter.com.

"Most of our customers come from the chemical industry, like BASF, Evonik, DSM, Clariant and others, but also the food industry Nutrinova, Suedzucker and many more.​

"We also collaborate with corporations from the pharmaceutical industry including Bayer, Schering, Sandoz and others. Mostly the collaborations are about using enzymes or mircoorganisms as whole cell catalysts.​

BioPharma-Reporter.com took the opportunity to ask this year's Biotechnica award winner what areas of the biopharmaceutical manufacturing process he thinks could still benefit from biotech innovation and the development of new technologies.

Langer said that: "To my view respective Bioplants for transformations still are rare and also downstream processing is a bottleneck​."

Ultimately, however, the most important part biotechnology can play in the biopharmaceutical sector or indeed any other industry is in cost reduction according to Langer.

"The most important thing is to keep the costs of goods in an acceptable window,"​ he said, adding that "Biotechnology has many answers especially in reducing the cost of goods​."