Key Factors In The Outsourcing Of A Microbial Fermentation Project To A CMO Partner

Microbial fermentation has been utilized for several decades as a manufacturing process to create a range of metabolites including enzymes/proteins, polysaccharides, nucleic acids and small molecules like antibiotics, steroids, amino acids, and lipids. Over the last decade, the potential of fermentation-based manufacturing has expanded dramatically due to advances in synthetic biology and genetic engineering that allow complex metabolic pathways to be transferred from various organisms into microbial production hosts. This market evolution has resulted in an exponential increase in the number of new or existing products, including drugs, advanced foods, cosmetic products and other advanced materials based upon engineered strains, which are now attractive for production utilizing microbial fermentation processes.

In this interview with Dr. Lars Geiger, Director of Global Projects at Evonik, we review key trends and scale-up challenges to manufacture a substance via fermentation.