Global Technology Transfer "Made in NRW": Biotechnological Processes to be established on the Indian Market

(openPR) PROvendis conducts successful negotiations with the Nagarjuna Group on behalf of the University of Duesseldorf and the Technical University of Dortmund.

After intensive contract negotiations, the Indian corporate group Nagarjuna Group – which has subsidiaries in the agriculture, and energy sectors – now owns the exclusive rights to the processes for the production of rhamnolipids.

The new biotechnological processes developed by the research teams led by Professor Blank and Professor Wichmann at the Technical University of Dortmund (Blank has since been offered a Professorship at the RWTH Aachen University) and by Dr. Rosenau at the University of Duesseldorf concern the product generation of rhamnolipids. These bio-surfactants are used in a wide range of industrial applications including food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical formulations and bioremediation of pollutants.

Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (NFCL) is the flagship company of the corporate group and is India’s leading manufacturer and supplier of plant nutrients, micro-irrigation and highly-effective protection chemicals. The advantages for the company of producing rhamnolipids in this newly developed way are obvious and are in line with Nagarjuna Group’s “Green Tomorrow” Philosophy: pathogenic microorganisms are avoided in the production of specifically designed end products and are replaced by safe organisms. It also allows an optimised and therefore accelerated removal of the bio-surfactants from the fermentation broth, as the products can be purged directly from the manufacturing process without having to disrupt the process. By purchasing the industrial property rights for the European, USA and Indian markets, the Nagarjuna Group aims to enable the whole process from bacteria through to product by way of detailed improvements in order to successfully establish the discovery as an innovation. These two university innovations join the progressive company’s own technologies to form a patent portfolio consisting of over 75 patents.

PROvendis supervised the innovations along the whole process chain, from registration of the innovations over the search for a suitable partner to the signing of the sale and cooperation contracts. PROvendis also accelerated in addition two cooperation projects with the university research groups in order to accelerate market entry – because only with successful emergence in the market a good idea does become a real innovation.