Fostering innovation: Novonesis highlights importance of biotech and new initiative to relax EU regulations

01 Apr 2024 --- Danish biotech giant Novonesis underscores the importance of competitive biotech R&D in the EU food nutrition space, to support the green transition and improve nutrition security. Nutrition Insight sits down with the company’ EVP of food and beverage biosolutions, Jacob Vishof Paulsen, to discuss market and regulatory developments in this space, aiming to increase innovation in the EU.

“We welcome the increasing awareness that biotechnology is getting in the EU, particularly the European Commission’s (EC) biotech and biomanufacturing initiative and the Net-Zero Industry Act,” states Paulsen.

“Biosolutions in the EU have the potential to accelerate the green transition while at the same time creating thousands of new green jobs in Europe,” he continues. 

Highlighting the importance of biotech to nutrition security and supply chains, Paulsen asserts: “Biosolutions provide resource efficiency throughout the food production value chain, and the aggregated effects of this efficiency have a beneficial impact on food supply security.”

Updating EU regulation 
The aim of the EC biotech and biomanufacturing initiative is to relax current regulations on biotechnology in order to facilitate the approval process and boost the industry. 

“At the regulatory level, there’s still some work to do for the EU to fully capture the biotech opportunity,” Paulsen argues. 

The new initiative was presented last month. At its launch, Margrethe Vestager, EC EVP for “A Europe Fit for the Digital Age,” commented: “Europe will not be attractive to businesses worldwide if permitting and other administrative procedures take much longer than in other parts of the world.”

Claire Skentelbery, director general of EuropaBio, the EU’s largest biotech industry association, points out that the current regulations on biotechnologies are stricter than those in the US, negatively affecting EU competitiveness. She welcomes the new initiative, stating that the EC has listened to the industry. 

Similarly, Paulsen asserts: “The recently launched initiative is an extraordinary step in the right direction and reflects the increasing focus on one of the EU’s key enabling sectors.”

Paulsen calls the EC Biotech and Biomanufacturing Initiative a step in the right directionHe adds that Novonesis plans to engage with EU stakeholders to ensure the sustained update of regulations to accommodate biosolutions. “We will continue to conduct a constructive dialogue and seek to inspire using data and science and back initiatives such as the European Biosolutions Coalition.”

The goal of the Net-Zero Industry Act, also spotlighted by Paulsen, is to accelerate the industrial deployment of net-zero technologies necessary to achieve the EU’s current climate goals. In February, the European Parliament and Council reached a preliminary agreement on the contents of the regulation. 

The potential of biosolutions
Paulsen underscores the importance of up-to-date biotech regulations for the EU. He adds that biosolutions are needed to address the contemporary challenges related to food security, particularly in light of recent disruptions in the global food supply chain.

“Enzyme and microbial biopesticide solutions offer crop yield improvements without the environmental impact from harsh chemicals. Other solutions generate higher productivity during the production phase, so each unit of raw material produces more consumer products,” he details. 

“Additionally, our food cultures and fermentation offer the best way to prevent food waste by adding shelf life and thereby a higher likelihood that products are consumed rather than thrown away prematurely.”

He states that the aggregate effects of higher yields, “improved productivity and decreased food waste” play a vital role in food supply security by generating “more from less” at several points in the food production value chain.

“Novonesis has a multitude of biosolutions for improved food quality, food safety and nutritional value,” Paulsen continues. “To be more specific, if we look at one of our main food and beverage biosolutions categories — fresh dairy — we feed into our customers’ need to market healthier products. These offer lower lactose and sugar and the opportunity to add some of the world’s most documented probiotics — LGG and BB-12.”

The company’s fermentation technology allows yogurt and other foods to remain fresh and safe for longer, thus reducing food waste. “Our food cultures and enzymes are already playing a huge part in today’s foods and beverages industries. Every second cheese and yogurt in the world contains an ingredient from Novonesis.”

“Innovation is at the heart of our company, and we will continue to develop and co-create solutions with our food and beverage industry partners to meet the needs for better, healthier and more sustainable food and beverages,” Paulsen concludes. 

By Milana Nikolova