INDIA | Climate biotech innovator Brevel, Ltd. signed a 50/50 joint-venture agreement with India-based conglomerate The Wave Group.
The collaboration will open a full-production biomanufacturing facility, funded by The Wave Group, based on Brevel’s illuminated fermentation technology.
The planned new manufacturing site in Uttar Pradesh, North India, represents a major scale-up from Brevel’s existing 5,000-litre bioreactor in its current commercial facility in Israel.
The new plant is designed to produce 300,000 litres in total capacity to meet growing market demand for Brevel’s microalgae products and serve the emerging plant-cell culture market.
Construction will begin later this year, with full-scale production set to commence in 18 months. Total investment in the JV facility is estimated at USD10-15 million.
The new plant will initially manufacture Purallis, a clean-label chlorella, significantly expanding Brevel’s production capacity. The plant is designed as a comprehensive illuminated-fermentation manufacturing platform and can produce additional light-dependent products and organisms.
Brevel’s illuminated fermentation technology, protected by four patents, combines controlled fermentation with light in a closed system. By successfully taking fermentation out of the dark, Brevel created a platform for manufacturing bioactives that rely on light-driven metabolism for growth.
Sugar provides the energy and nutrients needed for efficient fermentation, while light enables photosynthetic microorganisms such as chlorella to produce valuable compounds, including chlorophyll and carotenoids.
With sugar as a core fermentation input, Brevel will utilise sugar-production side streams from Wave’s sugar mills, supporting a circular-economy model as part of a zero-waste strategy. In addition, the new manufacturing facility's proximity to the sugar mills will cut transportation costs and minimise the associated environmental footprint.
Initial trials with various byproducts from Wave’s sugar mills have already yielded excellent results in Brevel’s bioreactors, and teams from both companies are currently working to optimise the system’s performance further. Using sugar processing side streams will not only give sugar waste a new purpose and reduce emissions, but also lower production costs.
More global news here
