Roquette Draws Support for BioHub Program

05/06/06 French President Jacques Chirac announced at the end of April the last six programs backed by the Industrial Innovation Agency (www.aii.fr). One of these is the BioHub program presented by the Roquette company.

The object of the BioHub program is to develop new production outlets for chemicals based on renewable agricultural raw materials such as grain.

The BioHub program will result in the creation of new integrated bio-refineries from grain to chemicals. In this respect it will make a concrete contribution to the limiting of the use of fossil resources, the reduction in the production of greenhouse gasses and the supporting of French agriculture. In ten years time the BioHub program will enable the use of 1.3 million tonnes of grain from 160,000 hectares. The new products produced by this research program are notably biopolymers, biosolvents, bioplasticizers, biocomplexing agents and active ingredients.

Roquette, the leading French starch manufacturer and the fourth-ranked starch producer in the world, has marshaled support from top-ranking industrialists: ARKEMA (France), DSM (Netherlands), COGNIS (Germany), SIDEL (France), TERGAL FIBRES (France), EUROVIA/VINCI (France) and globally recognized scientific bodies such as the INSAs of Lyon and Rouen and the IMMCL of Lille (CNRS) in order to bring this BioHub program to a successful conclusion.

Roquette  is particularly relying on the start-up METABOLIC EXPLORER, based in Clermont-Ferrand, one of the most dynamic of the young French newcomers in the industrial application of biotechnology techniques.

The BioHub program as a whole represents an effort of 98 million euros over 7 years, 43 million of which will be funded by the Industrial Innovation Agency in the form of subsidies and repayable loans.

With the BioHub program, Roquette  is thus bent on playing a major role in industrial innovation at the service of chemistry for sustainable development.