Advances in synthetic biology and a shift towards sustainable manufacturing methods are helping to drive demand for the selection of CMOs with best-in-class microbial fermentation capabilities. For more than four decades, Evonik has served as a reliable fermentation partner to pharmaceutical companies, as well as other innovators who are seeking to industrialize disruptive biofabrication technologies within promising markets such as advanced foods, cosmetics, biopolymers or nature-identical materials. We have leveraged our expertise across fermentation and biocatalysis technologies including strain development, process optimization and large-scale manufacturing to help bring many products from different application fields to market. With a total fermentation capacity of more than 4,000 m³ thanks to our trusted network of sites within the U.S., Europe, and Asia, we are ready to support your upcoming projects regardless of scale or complexity.

Evonik has a strong record of supporting pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics and biomaterial companies across a broad range of product classes where microbial fermentation technologies are required for biomanufacturing.

Areas of industry excellence for small molecules include:

• Amino acids and non-natural derivatives
• Secondary metabolites
• Natural substances
• Fatty acids and other lipid derivatives such as sphingosines or glycolipids

For complex molecules, we specialize in:

• Oligosaccharides
• Biosurfactants
• Enzymes
• Peptides and proteins
• Nucleotides

Other areas of expertise include whole organisms such as probiotics and whole cell catalysts.

Evonik supports customer projects that utilize a wide range of organisms used in strain development and fermentation, including Streptomyces, yeast and other fungi, and algae. More than 40 years of biotechnology experience across enzymatic chemistry and biocatalysis can be applied to the commercial production of more than 20 different enzyme platforms. This broad toolbox of enzymes, many of which can be applied as whole cell catalysts, provides the flexibility to optimize process development and scale-up. Rational strain development can utilize a selection of OMICS technologies including genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics to help identify new target molecules and eliminate bottlenecks or side reactions.

With a network of six fermentation sites across Europe, the U.S., and Asia, Evonik can provide a full portfolio of microbial fermentation and enzymatic chemistry to identify the optimal solution to any project requirements. Process development and pilot scale are available in various volumes from microtiter plates up to 5,000-liter bioreactors. Commercial production can utilize bioreactors with capacities up to 250 m³. A new, flexible pilot plant for upstream and downstream processing in Slovakia includes different kinds of unit operations for separation (e.g. solid-liquid separation, liquid-liquid separation, microfiltration, ultrafiltration and nanofiltration) as well as units for cell disruption, evaporation, crystallization, lyophilization etc.

Over the last decade, Evonik has leveraged its pharmaceutical capabilities in microbial fermentation to support the industrial-scale and commercial production of innovative products in other rapidly expanding market sectors such as advanced food ingredients, cosmetics and nature-identical materials including biofabricated leather and spider silk. These products can require advanced strain development and commercial manufacturing techniques such as the production of proteins through fermentation. We are proud to serve as an enabling partner to these innovative companies and support their pathway into high quality and sustainable supply.

Get in touch with our experts to discuss your specific needs and requirements by filling out our contact form.