McKinsey Company

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Biotech may be gaining importance in the food and nutrition sector, but many nutritional ingredients are still produced by chemical synthesis or via extraction for example, carotenoids are currently most competitively produced by chemical means. For vitamin B2, however, the situation has changed completely in the last five years. The traditional eight-step chemical synthesis has been replaced by one fermentation process. This biotech process, which is also practiced by BASF on a large scale, reduces overall cost by up to 40 percent and the overall environmental impact by 40 percent, as has been shown by detailed life cycle assessments. Similar trends have been described for other bio-based processes, indicating that economic and environmental benefits go hand in hand in today s white biotech practice (EuropaBio and McKinsey Company, 2003, DSM position document, 2004). 

A good example of a white biotech process in the pharmaceutical area is our route to the antibiotic cephalexin, practiced on a large industrial scale for several years now. By advanced enzyme and metabolic engineering we were able to replace the traditional 10-step, mainly chemical synthesis (Fig. 29.3A) by a fermentative route followed by two mild enzymatic steps (Fig. 29.3 B). The white biotech process has been shown recently to use far less energy (-65%), less input of (harsh) chemicals (-65%), is water-based, generates less waste, and is very cost-effective (-50%) (Bruggink, A.). Again, this is a bio-based process where environmental and economic benefits go hand in hand and for which there is no competitive chemical alternative (EuropaBio and McKinsey Company, 2003 DSM position document, 2004). 

The shift from bio-based specialties to commodities is already visible in the marketplace with biopolymers made from corn. The first example is NatureWorks from Cargill, which is made from corn sugar-derived lactic acid. As in the biochemicals examples described above, the environmental benefits are eye-opening NatureWorks already requires 25 to 55 percent less fossil resources, and it is planned to replace fossil resources completely in the next four to six years (Euro-paBio and McKinsey Company, 2003). Other high-potential biomaterials are a polymer based on 1,3-propanediol from DuPont and Genencor (Sorona ) and... 

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Value Creation. Strategies for the Chemical Industry. I 1 McKinsey Company, F. Budde, G.A. Farha, H. Frankemolle, D.F. Hoffmeister, K. Kramer (Eds.) ... 

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