Sustainability by Design: Markets then Microbes

Process development used to begin by detailing various unit operations to convert feed-stock into product. The advent of bioengineering has swung this focus from macro- to microbe. Organisms are the new bio-refinery creating a paradigm shift in commercial process development.

Today, bioengineering unlocks access to new substrates and tailored organisms equipped with specifically engineered metabolic pathways to produce a diversity of bio-products. Recent advancements in biotechnology such as the evolution of proteins de novo--enabled by powerful bioengineering tools and an open regulatory environment--are revolutionizing the world of biotechnology.

However, one thing hasn’t changed: sustainable innovation still begins by identifying robust target markets prior to investigating technologies. This approach is often referred to as Market-Driven Innovation.

As such, Sustainability by Design aligns innovative biotechnology to access new markets and begins with the “end in mind”--a 5 year vision of how innovation enables your business strategy. It evaluates markets prior to investigating technology since there is marginal financial benefit in improving technology or products the market incentivizes less and less.

Sustainability by design begins by targeting markets with enough scale to attractively justify access cost. Next, it looks to achieve quantifiable diversification to adequately reduce earnings volatility and optimize risk adjusted returns. Accordingly, expected market returns must complement the current revenue structure. It’s imperative that customer-facing value drivers are well understood from the beginning to maximize opportunity as markets may be indifferent to afford premiums for "climate justice".

Today, with the tractability of crops and organisms, biotechnology is integral to delivering value and a pivotal consideration for process design. Why design expensive, retroactive process treatments if the crop and organism can be engineered to produce target products de novo? At n2 (n-squared) Solutions, our approach to process development considers organism and crop bioengineering early on.

Syngenta’s Enogen Corn, DuPont’s Plenish high-oleic, zero trans-fat soybean, Lallemand’s Transferm Yeast are salient examples of the impact bioengineered crops and organisms exert on process design. Enogen eliminates the need for exogenous amylase. Transferm mitigates metabolic competition, whereas Plenish removes the need for the catalytic hydrogenation step in vegetable oil refining.

Market value drivers become deliverables for bio and process engineering. Value drivers may be functionality, sourcing, sensory, regulatory (FDA, Kosher) or legislative opportunities (EPA, LCFS) that greatly influence process design. Finally, for all three tenets of sustainability by design, we want to innovate “just enough” for optimal risk/return.

From farm to sugar to high volume low cost fermentation, the ethanol process is a remarkable example of scale and economics of one of the most tractable substrate/ organism platforms in biotechnology. These capabilities are rarely duplicated in other biotechnology industries enabling a unique porthole to access new markets.

No one in the industry is offering integrated, turnkey solutions delivering the optionality to access available markets. Likely, your innovation solution will need to be tailored to your business strategy and involve multiple technology solutions. At n2 (n-squared) Solutions, we deliver winning program management services to develop and execute your innovation plan.