DSM, BRAIN announce strategic cooperation to develop water-soluble vitamins

DSM Nutritional Products GmbH, a subsidiary of the Dutch company Royal DSM N.V., the world's primary supplier of vitamins, carotenoids and fine chemicals and BRAIN AG, one of the leading European white biotechnology companies, announced a strategic cooperation in the biotechnological production of water-soluble vitamins.

“Fermentative vitamin production has developed into a prime discipline of white biotechnology in the past decades. This is precisely why we need to delve deep into nature's toolbox in this intended project. We call this”

Cooperation stands on firm ground

Benefiting from the long-term experience of BRAIN AG in constructing and optimising microbial production strains and identifying and preparing new biological synthetic pathways on the one hand and the established expertise of DSM Nutritional Products in producing and marketing vitamins for the feed producing and food industries and the pharmaceutical and cosmetic sector on the other, this cooperation is based on a solid fundament and promises success for both sides.

Another collaboration between BRAIN AG and Royal DSM N.V. in the field of enzyme systems and strain development for fermentative production of special chemicals was already publicized at the beginning of 2009. The collaboration published today represents an important landmark in the corporate strategy of BRAIN, aimed at intensifying and boosting its cooperation business with globally successful partners within the chemical industry. For DSM Nutritional Products, this cooperation with BRAIN augments the network philosophy "Open Innovation", where selected specialists deal with customized issues.

Strategic orientation

"By cooperating with BRAIN, DSM Nutritional Products will gain extensive access to the comprehensive technological platform of BRAIN for water-soluble vitamin production and extends DSM resources in this competitive sector. BRAIN possesses a unique portfolio of new enzymes and microbial synthetic pathways, which will allow us to develop new metabolic production pathways to further increase vitamin production efficiency," explains Dr. Hans-Peter Hohmann, Principal Scientist at DSM Nutritional Products. "We are also very pleased that this research venture will receive support from the funding initiative "BioIndustrie 2021" of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This emphasizes and validates the scientific quality and technological leadership of the undertaking."

"We are delighted that DSM Nutritional Products is already the second subsidiary of DSM N.V., which has decided to cooperate with us in a strategic partnership", says Dr. Jürgen Eck, Chief Scientific Officer of BRAIN AG. "Fermentative vitamin production has developed into a prime discipline of white biotechnology in the past decades. This is precisely why we need to delve deep into nature's toolbox in this intended project. We call this "Biologically inspired Engineering" and as cooperation partners this will also involve constructing completely new high-efficiency producers for fermentative vitamin production."