Specialist biotechnology capabilities

What are Croda’s biotechnology specialisms?

Biocatalysts

Our patented technology identifies new functionality using enzymes to modify carbohydrate-based compounds. With this, we can offer customers across our Consumer Care and Life Sciences businesses innovative ingredients to satisfy the demands of consumers.

Our team at our biocatalyst innovation centre in Sweden are also specialists in understanding the physico-chemical properties of the new materials they produce. Using advanced analytical techniques such as NMR, light scattering and neutron scattering, to pair the molecular properties with a suitable application, further supporting our customer’s ambitions and future needs.

Marine biocatalysts

Our Centre of Innovation for Marine Biotechnology harnesses the immense metabolic capabilities of marine microbial biodiversity. The team use high throughput screening to analyse the vast array of organisms and their potential value either as a new active, or as a sustainable alternative to existing actives.

Produced by a sustainable fermentation process, the ingredients identified are from 100% bio-based raw materials and are inherently biodegradable, perfectly aligning with our 2030 sustainability targets.

Plant and micro-organisms culture

Focusing on developing innovative active ingredients for the personal care sector, our team at Sederma use plant and micro-organisms like bacteria, yeast and algae to develop a large range of products. The team works closely with other biotechnology laboratories in the Group, as well as universities, independent laboratories, and innovation partners to continuously innovate and develop know-how in this field,

Plant cell culture

We are a world leader in the emerging market of plant cell culture actives in personal care.

Having developed an exclusive biotechnology-derived method for sourcing non-GMO plant stem cell ingredients, our team at Istituto di Ricerche Biotecnologiche in Italy, in combination with Sederma, use small amounts of plant tissue to develop a stable culture that produces specific active substances indefinitely. This process allows the potential of rare or endangered species to be fully utilised, with minimal environmental impact, helping safeguard biodiversity and minimising harvesting. In comparison with conventional agriculture, this process shows a 99.9% decrease in water consumption and negligible soil occupation, with the total absence of pesticides or other contaminants.

Synthetic biology and fermentation

Our expert teams in microbial fermentation and analytics, synthetic biology, downstream processing and biocatalysts support innovation across all our sectors. The team at our specialist innovation centre in the UK develop and identify innovative new products, as well as supporting our biotech and R&D teams around the world to develop sustainable alternatives to petroleum-derived ingredients.

Production scale-up

Moving biotechnology processes from laboratory to full-scale production is a complex process. At our specialist manufacturing site in the UK, we have over 40 years’ experience in managing production scale up and ensuring we can meet customer demand for ingredients with complicated, multistage biotechnology reactions.