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Phytow­elt Green­Tech­no­lo­gies takes home the 9th Europa­Bio Biotech SME Awards

04.12.2018
Awards were also giv­en in the cat­egor­ies health­care and indus­tri­al. Runner’s‑up awards in this year’s com­pet­i­tion were presen­ted to Medi­cor­tex Fin­land and CHAIN Bio­tech­no­logy in the health­care biotech cat­egory, to Kaffe Bueno in the indus­tri­al biotech cat­egory and Alkol in the agri­cul­tur­al biotech cat­egory. This year’s Most Innov­at­ive European Biotech SME Awards saw 40 com­pan­ies, from across the EU, com­pet­ing for the three coveted awards, acknow­ledging their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion towards tack­ling grand chal­lenges through the applic­a­tion of bio­tech­no­logy. The awards were presen­ted dur­ing a din­ner cere­mony in Brus­sels on 3 Decem­ber hos­ted by MEP Dr. Paul Rübig, where each of the final­ists took part in a ​‘pitch­ing ses­sion’, going head-to-head, across the three cat­egor­ies, and present­ing their innov­a­tions to the audi­ence. The key­note speech was giv­en by Deputy Dir­ect­or-Gen­er­al Wolfgang Burtscher, of DG Research, Sci­ence and Innov­a­tion at the European Com­mis­sion, who high­lighted biotech as a Key Enabling Tech­no­logy which will con­tin­ue to play a core role in deliv­er­ing on the aspir­a­tions of Hori­zon Europe. Peter Hein­rich, chair of EuropaBio’s SME plat­form com­men­ted: ​‘EU Biotech SMEs and start-ups are at the cut­ting edge of innov­a­tion, help­ing us to not only live health­i­er and longer, but also con­trib­ut­ing to a sus­tain­able bio-based eco­nomy, as demon­strated by the win­ners and the run­ners-up at this com­pet­i­tion. How­ever, they con­tin­ue to face sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cing and reg­u­lat­ory bar­ri­ers. These awards are an import­ant oppor­tun­ity to demon­strate the out­stand­ing work that is already being done and to recog­nise how much more could be achieved with sup­port­ive, enabling reg­u­la­tion and incentives.’ Europa­Bio Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al, Joanna Dupont – Ing­lis, added: ​‘We are in awe of the work of these SMEs and start-ups. They are on the front line in the devel­op­ment of biotech solu­tions for people and plan­et. Their vis­ion, per­sever­ance and achieve­ments are truly inspir­a­tion­al, and we are proud to hon­our them with these annu­al awards.

The Win­ners

  • Agri­cul­tur­al Biotech Cat­egory: Phytow­elt Green­Tech­no­lo­gies (DE): Phytow­elt Green­Tech­no­lo­gies is an SME focus­sing on plant-breed­ing pro­jects that aim at enabling region­al pro­duc­tion of renew­able resources. It is the first com­pany able to pro­duce a biotech rasp­berry fra­grance in high quant­ity and qual­ity without using energy inef­fi­cient pet­ro­chem­ic­al pro­cesses, which helps meet the big and unmet demand of the per­fume, food and cos­met­ic mar­kets for nat­ur­al fra­grances and flavours.
  • Health­care Biotech Cat­egory: Gen­os­cience Pharma (FR): Gen­os­cience Pharma is an innov­at­ive SME loc­ated in Mar­seille, France, that is in product devel­op­ment phase with their ther­apy against can­cer stem cells, which are con­sidered to be respons­ible for treat­ment res­ist­ance and muta­tion. Genoscience’s drug can­did­ate has the poten­tial to reduce the fre­quency of relapse when com­bined with chemotherapy.
  • Indus­tri­al Biotech Cat­egory: Lac­tips (FR): Lac­tips is spe­cial­ised in the devel­op­ment of eco-friendly plastic raw mater­i­al. One of the mater­i­als they man­u­fac­ture is the only ther­mo­plastic, sound and clean bio-based and bio­de­grad­able mater­i­al world­wide to be water-sol­uble at room tem­per­at­ure and made of milk pro­tein. These out­stand­ing prop­er­ties are brought by the indus­tri­al mas­ter­ing of the trans­form­a­tion of milk pro­tein into pro­cess­able poly­mers. To help with its pro­ject invest­ment and recruit­ment activ­it­ies, Lac­tips received fund­ing of EUR 1.5 mil­lion from the EU Hori­zon 2020 SME Instru­ment phase 2.

The Run­ners-Up

  • Health­care Biotech Cat­egory: Medi­cor­tex Fin­land (FIN) is a prom­ising SME that is still not on the mar­ket but man­aged to raise €1.1M fund­ing from private investors. Medi­cor­tex is ded­ic­ated to improv­ing the dia­gnos­is, treat­ment and pre­ven­tion of acute neuro­de­gen­er­at­ive con­di­tions and is cur­rently focus­ing on devel­op­ing a dia­gnost­ic kit for the detec­tion of trau­mat­ic brain injury.
  • Health­care Biotech Cat­egory: CHAIN Bio­tech­no­logy (UK) is a micro­bi­o­me com­pany focused on the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­isa­tion of micro­bi­al tech­no­logy for the pro­duc­tion and deliv­ery of bio­thera­peut­ics to the gut. The UK-based company’s tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to be highly dis­rupt­ive both in terms of cost but also effic­acy for the treat­ment and pre­ven­tion of chron­ic and debil­it­at­ing gut related dis­eases. Pre-clin­ic­al tests with their lead product showed a reduc­tion of inflam­ma­tion implic­ated in bowel diseases.
  • Indus­tri­al Biotech Cat­egory: Kaffe Bueno (DK) is a cof­fee recyc­ling com­pany foun­ded by Colom­bi­an nat­ives based in Den­mark. The com­pany com­bines used cof­fee grounds with bio­tech­no­logy to cre­ate healthy ingredi­ents to be used in phar­ma­ceut­ic­al applic­a­tions. Next year, they will open Scandinavia’s first cof­fee biore­finery where they will pro­cess cof­fee waste from Copen­ha­gen and extract its oil and oth­er bio­act­ive compounds.
  • Agri­cul­tur­al Biotech Cat­egory: Alkol Biotech (UK) star­ted three years ago and aims at devel­op­ing new plant vari­et­ies able to grow in colder and drier cli­mates offer­ing bet­ter res­ist­ance to pests and dis­eases and high­er pro­ductiv­it­ies in order to meet the needs of the bio-based mar­kets. This year, they signed a let­ter of intent for the sourcing of up to 500 thou­sand tonnes of non-woody ligno­cel­lu­losic bio­mass to what would be Europe’s largest biorefinery.
Source: EuropaBio/​BioTech SME Awards
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