Anim­al-free milk pro­teins on the rise

BRAIN Biotech AG and Formo Bio GmbH launch a stra­tegic col­lab­or­a­tion to fur­ther advance the fer­ment­at­ive pro­duc­tion of anim­al-free milk pro­teins. BRAIN Biotech is a lead­ing indus­tri­al bio­tech­no­logy com­pany; Ber­lin-based food tech start-up Formo is a pion­eer­ing food tech com­pany in the field of altern­at­ive milk pro­teins. As experts in their fields, the two biotech com­pan­ies are driv­ing innov­a­tion in the European economy.

The Ber­lin-based com­pany recently received $50 mil­lion for its ven­ture, the largest Series A fund­ing as a European FoodTech com­pany. For­mo’s products are based on real, anim­al-free milk pro­teins pro­duced using pre­ci­sion fer­ment­a­tion. The young com­pany aims to accel­er­ate the scal­ing of its bioidentic­al milk pro­tein pro­duc­tion with a gen­ome edit­ing tech­no­logy, rely­ing on BRAIN Biotech’s expert­ise and pro­pri­et­ary BEC plat­form. The stra­tegic col­lab­or­a­tion aims to optim­ize microor­gan­isms to expand nov­el and sus­tain­able pro­tein pro­duc­tion through pre­ci­sion fer­ment­a­tion for com­mer­cial use.

Formo is open­ing up a com­pletely new product cat­egory along­side anim­al products and purely plant-based altern­at­ives: the Ber­lin-based star­tup pro­duces nature-identic­al milk pro­teins using spe­cial­ized microor­gan­isms. As the first com­pany in Europe, Formo aims to revo­lu­tion­ize the $700 bil­lion dairy mar­ket while sav­ing sev­er­al gigatons of CO2. In doing so, Formo is meet­ing increas­ing demand from con­sumers: Just recently, the star­tup con­duc­ted a con­sumer study on this, con­firm­ing that 79 per­cent of con­sumers want to try anim­al-free cheese products.

“We are proud to have BRAIN as a renowned part­ner with whom we share our pas­sion for bio­tech­no­logy and ambi­tion for great­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity: Through pre­ci­sion fer­ment­a­tion, we can decouple the cow from the dairy value chain, redu­cing green­house gas emis­sions by 91 to 97 per­cent,” says Dr. Britta Win­ter­berg, co-founder and Chief Sci­entif­ic Officer at Formo. ​“With the know-how of the best experts in our team and with a strong part­ner in strain engin­eer­ing, our products can be the first of their kind to be pro­duced on an indus­tri­al scale and offered at com­pet­it­ive prices. By cooper­at­ing with BRAIN, we can build our role as a glob­al mar­ket lead­er even faster.”

“We are pleased to be able to sup­port Formo with our gen­ome edit­ing expert­ise and our pro­pri­et­ary BEC nuc­le­ase to devel­op a pro­duc­tion strain for the pro­duc­tion of anim­al-free cheese products. This is where pre­ci­sion fer­ment­a­tion comes into play. It is an example of how gen­ome edit­ing tech­no­logy can be used to obtain a pro­tein that is nature-identic­al, but can be pro­duced in a much more sus­tain­able man­ner than the anim­al pro­tein,” said Dr. Michael Krohn, Head of R&D at BRAIN Biotech.

“Formo is a pion­eer in many respects. The fast decision-mak­ing pro­cesses, fair nego­ti­ation strategy and clear ideas on how to mar­ket the products in Europe make Formo an ideal stra­tegic part­ner for BRAIN. Com­bined with our tech­no­lo­gic­al expert­ise, this makes for a unique part­ner­ship,” points out Dr. Mar­tin Langer, EVP and Head of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at BRAIN Biotech.