Award for efficient knowledge transfer

The industry association IChemE has distinguished Biocatalysts Ltd for its fruitful cooperation with University College London (UCL). With the renowned IChemE Global Food & Drink Award 2020, the association honored the ultra-scale-down process for industrial enzyme production.

The award recognizes the commitment to a project that brings together techniques and theories developed in an academic environment and then validates them under industrial processing conditions. In the context of this knowledge transfer partnership between the UCL's Bioprocess Engineering Department and enzyme specialist Biocatalysts Ltd, sponsored by Innovate UK, the jury stated that advanced bioprocess engineering techniques were successfully embedded in the enzyme manufacturing processes at Biocatalysts Ltd, in some cases increasing process productivity by up to 50%.

According to Biocatalysts, these and other process improvements, such as higher-quality process streams, will result in economic benefits for customers by reducing the barriers to market entry for the supply of enzymes produced by Biocatalysts Ltd. In addition, the improvements will promote the further spread of biotechnological applications in the food and other industries.

Daren Bryce, Commercial Director at Biocatalysts, is delighted with the award: "I would like to congratulate the entire team for their commitment in applying these pathbreaking techniques to our processes. The use of ultra-scale down procedures means that we can test a range of parameters in a very short time frame. This improves the efficiency of our processes and underpins our commitment to continuously exceed our customers' expectations of our enzymes".

The industry association IChemE has been promoting the contribution of chemical engineering to the benefit of society worldwide for almost 100 years. The association supports the professional development of chemical engineers and has established a network of over 35,000 members in more than 100 countries.