Project granted: AgriBluBio - Start-up Transfer.NRW grant to support Dr. Anne Vortkamp’s planned biotech start-up AgriBluBio

Today, we finally received confirmation for our Start-up Transfer.NRW grant application to support the foundation of the planned biotech start-up AgriBluBio by our alumna Dr. Anne Vortkamp, supported by our alumnus Dr. Philipp Lemke. The evaluation and approval process has taken some time, after the application deadline in January followed by an official project pitch in front of members from EU and NRW government in June. We are confident that we can finally start this project by end of this year. This will then allow us to do what we have been planning for a decade: founding a biotech start-up to bring our Second and, eventually, our Third Generation Chitosans to the market. These chitosans are structurally and functionally much better characterised than today's First Generation Chitosan which is currently dominating the market, but which is plagued by poor reproducibility in its applications because its structure is ill-defined, and can vary strongly between batches. We already have a first product that is market-ready, our general-purpose plant strengthener CaraPlant, and more specifically acting products for different crop species or different application routes are in the development. These will support current efforts to reduce the amounts of pesticides and fertilizers required to secure yields and product quality in agriculture. We will be proud to see our research of almost thirty years bearing fruit.