A Conversation with Joanna DuPont-Inglis

INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY: How would you describe the current health of industrial biotechnology development in Europe as a whole?

JOANNA DUPONT-INGLIS: The benefits of industrial biotech (IB) in the EU continue to grow steadily. In addition, it's increasingly acknowledged that IB-derived products are projected to offer significant potential for overcoming many of the socio-economic and environmental challenges that we face in the coming decades. The EU market for IB-derived products is expected to increase from €28 billion in 2013 to €50 billion in 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 7% per annum. This growth will largely be driven by projected increases in the consumption of bioethanol and biobased plastics. New products, such as aviation biofuels are likely to be commercialized in this period and gain market share. Since the adoption of the Bioeconomy Strategy by the European Commission in 2012, the visibility and importance of the sector has increased and industrial biotech has rightly been recognized as a key enabling technology for accessing the potential of the bioeconomy. In addition, the EU has the potential to valorize around 100 million tonnes of unexploited biomass without adversely impacting on the environment or food production. Based on the estimated carbon dioxide (CO₂)-reduction benefits of future biorefineries, this is predicted to lead to more than 60 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent savings, similar to the annual CO₂ emissions of a major city such as Paris, London or Rome. However despite this focus and the fact that Industrial biotech is one of the EUs technological strengths, several hurdles continue to hamper the full exploitation of its potential.

IB: How does the current health of the industrial biotechnology sector in Europe vary among biofuels, biochemicals, biomaterials, nutrition? Any regions stand out as particularly active?

DUPONT-INGLIS: According to BIO-TIC, an EU-funded project coordinated by EuropaBio which was completed in June 2015, by far the biggest segment of IB-derived products as a whole is antibiotics which accounts for over half the total market, followed by biogas, and bioethanol respectively. Remaining applications including amino acids, enzymes, biosurfactants, biobased plastics, vitamins, biosolvents and biolubricants, together accounted for less than a quarter of market demand in 2013. In terms of regions, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy, France and the UK are big leaders with Finland, Sweden and Hungary becoming increasingly active. We also see exciting innovation being led by clusters, such as the Bio-based Delta in the Netherlands, IAR, ARD, and Toulouse White Biotech in France and from organizations like Biovale in York, United Kingdom. That said, in regions where there remains huge untapped potential such as in some of the newer EU member states (Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) progress has been slower. Here, bigger investments are needed to foster centers of excellence in industrial biotech and in putting in place the necessary infrastructure and training to foster a more competitive bioeconomy throughout the EU.

IB: How is investment faring in this new era of low oil?

DUPONT-INGLIS: In July 2014 the EU launched its first ever public private partnership for biobased industries, known as the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU). This initiative will see almost €3.8 billion of investment in biobased industries, enabled by industrial biotech, across the EU over roughly a 10 year period. This signifies that investment continues even when oil prices were at historic lows. While it's true that the principal barrier to fully exploiting IB in the EU still remains product cost-competitiveness, both compared to fossil alternatives and to equivalent products from overseas, exceptions are emerging. Consumer appreciation of sustainability continues to rise and new and novel bio-based products with functionalities superior to those of traditional fossil counterparts continue to come online. Therefore, while biobased development has certainly not been helped by low oil prices, neither has it ground to a halt.

IB: What are the most significant challenges for European industrial biotechnology firms? The most significant opportunities?

DUPONT-INGLIS: In terms of challenges, we need to improve opportunities for feedstock producers within the bioeconomy. Feedstock producers can play a vital role in developing the bioeconomy and awareness raising of potential opportunities (both using existing and novel crops), ensuring a fair price for feedstocks and the development of infrastructure for collection, storage and transportation of biomass are all required. In addition, we need to further investigate and understand the scope for using novel biomass. Wastes and residues are favored as routes to not compete with food production or land use, but little is known about how much of these wastes can be utilized without adversely impacting upon other markets. For this the EU needs to undertake a comprehensive assessment of sustainable waste flows and research and innovation funding is needed to deal with the inherent variability of waste and residue products. In some cases, national policies may need to be amended to ensure that wastes can be used in industrial biotechnology products and in most there is an ongoing need to train a workforce which can maintain Europe's competitiveness in industrial biotechnology. Perhaps most importantly, the EU needs to introduce a long-term, stable and transparent policy and incentive framework to promote the bioeconomy. The EU policy environment is often criticized for not supporting innovative industrial biotechnology products sufficiently and for being unpredictable and incoherent. Furthermore, a series of measures such as financial incentives or tax reductions could be used to help foster investments, whilst public procurement for industrial biotechnology-derived products could also help create markets. We need to do more to improve public perception and awareness of industrial biotechnology and biobased products. Despite the environmental and social benefits which industrial biotechnology products can bring, customers and end users are not necessarily aware of what industrial biotechnology is or of the value proposition offered by its products. Targeted information campaigns to customers and end-users can help develop the market, but to ensure maximum impact, these should ascertain peoples' understanding first to identify gaps to address. Another issue is the need to identify, leverage and build upon EU capabilities for pilot and demonstration facilities. The EU has a number of scale-up facilities for industrial biotechnology processes and whilst some of these are in operational others are idle. There needs to be a better understanding of what the capabilities of these plants are to help signpost people to appropriate facilities. The EU should boost its industrial biotech deployment by developing existing infrastructures to create centers of excellence in scale-up rather than invest in multiple redundant facilities.

In terms of processing, more can be done to promote the use of co-products and the smart and efficient use of biomass should be encouraged. Optimization of separation technologies would help in the recovery of potentially marketable co-products. Bioconversion and downstream processing optimization could significantly reduce costs and improve efficiency of production. This would entail optimization of microbial strains for the production of new products, making them resistant to contaminants present within lignocellulosic and waste feedstocks. There is a need to ensure continuous improvement of industrial biotechnology technologies to ensure competitiveness; R&D therefore needs to be funded across technology readiness levels, not just on emerging technologies. Furthermore we need to improve access to financing for large-scale biorefinery projects. The European climate for investment in large scale biorefineries is often considered to be challenging compared to other regions of the world. Public funding only covers part of the costs associated with project development and support from other sources need to be made available to cover the remaining costs. There is a need to improve the visibility and alignment of different funding schemes, and demonstrate how they can be integrated. A distinct European BioEconomy Strategic Investment Fund (EBESIF) could help pool resources from different financing mechanisms such as those available through the European Investment Bank and private funds, and help leverage Commission contributions. Lastly, we need an ongoing effort to establish stronger relationships between the conventional and non-conventional players that IB brings together to incorporate actors from a wide range of backgrounds. Here, there is a crucial role for cluster organizations to play in helping develop relationships between unconventional actors in the supply chain. A mapping exercise would help identify existing clusters active in the industrial biotechnology area, and actions should be taken to facilitate the development of new ones where gaps exist.

The opportunity provided by Europe's value-adding IB industry is considerable across many sectors. However strong leadership and coordination are needed to ensure that this potential is recognized, harnessed, and exploited. The EU needs to leverage its strengths and identify what its level of ambition is, especially in view of the increasing global competition in this sector, inevitably new technologies take time to develop. A long term sustained commitment is necessary to give confidence that the EU is seriously intending to leverage on its industrial strengths in IB and clean technology sectors in general, From this, a virtuous circle of investments, growth and innovation will then develop, generating additional direct and indirect jobs.

IB: How would you describe the policy environment for industrial biotechnology in Europe? What's working, and what isn't? What policies do you believe would have the most beneficial impact on catalyzing innovation and business development in the sector?

DUPONT-INGLIS: The bioeconomy strategy marked a milestone for biobased industries in improving policy makers understanding of the potential for increased sustainability, productivity and competitiveness across a broad range of sectors. Some parts of the action plan have been very successfully implemented such as the Biobased Industries Joint Undertaking which was outlined in the strategy and which EuropaBio was instrumental in delivering. However, the strategy now needs to be reviewed and revised in the context of our commitments made at COP-21 in Paris to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change and to deliver a circular economy. Policy on the latter of these holds great potential for creating new markets for cleaner, greener technologies with societal and economic benefits, including jobs and growth—if the synergies between these policies are recognized and optimized. In the EU, we perhaps suffer more from a short-termism in policy making and in commitment to a given cause or issue. Industrial biotech already plays a huge role in ensuring resource efficiency but so much more is possible with the right political support. Crucially, as already outlined, this needs to be unwavering and long-term to be truly effective.

IB: How can organizations like EuropaBio best support companies in industrial biotechnology with challenges such as strain engineering, partnering, product development, process scale-up, and the valley of death?

DUPONT-INGLIS: Through our work on the BIO-TIC project we were able to establish a partnering database and to conduct a number of consultations across the EU with leading actors in industrial biotech. This enabled us to put together a set of recommendations designed to overcome hurdles to innovation in Industrial Biotech which now form the basis for our activities in the coming years. In addition, we work together with a broad stakeholder group to identify future research and innovation needs and to call for funding for these. However, one of the main roles that EuropaBio can play, particularly in the policy field, is helping to highlight and showcase the best of our benefits. Happily we never run out of these as more and more are being developed by our members each year. Communicating these is vital in order to put in place the kind of measures and support that will enable IB to deliver on its promise in the EU.