Bio-economy company BRAIN AG has announced that it has signed a share of purchase agreement with Biocatalysts Ltd. for a majority stake in the company.
“The new strategic partnership with Biocatalysts is aimed at accelerating product development, production and marketing of innovations in a growing bio-economy, which includes the field of specialty enzymes,” said Jürgen Eck, CEO of BRAIN AG. “Biocatalysts is one of the leading players in this field with proven production expertise as well as access to global markets. Together we can fuel our complementary enzyme businesses, increase growth margins and strengthen BRAIN Group’s BioIndustrial segment which aims at marketing own product candidates.”
For over 35 years, Biocatalysts Ltd. has focused on the development, production and distribution of specialty enzymes for the food and fine chemical industries. Between the 2014/2015 and 2016/2017 fiscal year, Biocatalysts Ltd. had grown by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12%. The company also ended its 2016/2017 year with € 10.81 million of revenue, a 19.7% growth rate from the previous year.
According to a Transparency Market Research report, the global specialty enzymes market was worth $1,782 million in 2016 and is expected to grow by a CAGR of 8.7% to $3,726 million by 2025. BRAIN AG hopes to tap into this growth by further developing its production, global distribution and R&D capabilities.
“Merging the scientific and technological competencies of Biocatalysts and BRAIN offers great new technological possibilities. At Biocatalysts, we have strong expertise and capabilities in specialty enzyme development and production at various scales, especially in the food, fine chemical and pharma sectors. We are currently expanding our state-of-the-art production facilities aligned to our continued success in enzyme development. BRAIN is a highly innovative biotechnology pioneer possessing a strong and complementary technology portfolio. Getting direct access to BRAIN’s BioArchive which encompasses a huge variety of enzymes and entire metabolic pathways will fuel our joint activities,” said Andrew Ellis, technical and compliance director of Biocatalysts Ltd.
