Deinove validates key milestone 3 of its Deinochem program and receives €0.8 million from ADEME

In France, ADEME has validated key step 3 of Deinove’s DEINOCHEM program, dedicated to the bio-based production of carotenoids and financed by ADEME (the French Environment and Energy Management Agency) under the “Investissements d’Avenir” (Investments for the Future) program.

This new key milestone validates the technical progress made in developing the carotenoid production process. The target thresholds for productivity and yield have been reached using optimized Deinococcus strains on the laboratory scale. The Company’s ambition is to market its first batches of the target compounds in 2018, and last November it announced that it had selected Processium, an expert in industrial process engineering, to work with on these developments.

In accordance with the aid agreement signed in 2013, ADEME’s validation resulted in the payment, early December, of approximately €0.8 million in repayable advances.

The DEINOCHEM program targets the production of carotenoids, compounds that are naturally found in many living beings and widely used in industry for their coloring and antioxidant properties. The worldwide carotenoid market is expected to reach $1.8 billion by 2019. The largest share of production comes from petroleum derivatives, but natural molecules are generating the strongest growth, notably due to consumer demand. Today, there are several production techniques such as extraction from tomatoes (lycopene) or paprika (capsanthin) and bioproduction from algae (astaxanthin) or microorganisms (beta-carotene). The supply of bio-based solutions is nonetheless limited due to their high production costs.

http://www.deinove.com