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Israeli biotech company Brevel has signed a 50/50 joint venture agreement with Indian conglomerate The Wave Group to build a full-scale facility in North India, based on Brevel’s illuminated fermentation technology.
The planned site, to be located in Uttar Pradesh, marks a significant scale-up from Brevel’s existing 5,000-litre-capacity bioreactor in its current facility in Israel. The new plant is designed to produce a total capacity of 300,000 litres, aiming to meet growing demand for Brevel’s microalgae-based ingredients and serve the scale-up needs of the emerging plant cell culture industry.
The Wave Group will fund the project through the collaboration, with total investment in the joint venture facility estimated at $10-15 million. Construction is slated for later this year, with full-scale production planned to commence in 18 months.
The plant will initially produce Purallis, a clean-label ingredient made from the microalgae chlorella. It will be equipped Brevel’s proprietary technology platform, and will be capable of producing additional products and organisms that benefit from light.
Brevel’s technology, protected by four patents, combines controlled fermentation with light in a closed system. The company has created a platform for manufacturing bioactives that rely on light-driven metabolism for growth – sugar provides the energy and nutrients needed for efficient fermentation, while light enables photosynthetic microorganisms like chlorella to produce valuable compounds, including chlorophyll and carotenoids.
The facility will also align with a circular economy model, with Brevel set to utilise sugar production side streams from Wave’s sugar mills. The proximity of the site to the sugar mills will also reduce environmental footprint and cut transport costs.
According to Brevel, initial trials with Wave’s sugar mill byproducts have already yielded strong results in its bioreactors. Both companies’ teams are now working to further optimise the system’s performance.
Yonatan Golan, CEO and co-founder of Brevel, said: “This partnership marks a major step forward in our ability to serve global markets, opening new opportunities across microalgae, plant cell culture and beyond”.
“Our work with partners such as Ayana Bio, a US leader in plant cell technology, already demonstrates the broad potential of our platform. Together with The Wave Group, we can turn that potential into commercial-scale manufacturing.”
Chairman of The Wave Group, Manpreet Singh Chadha, commented: “Brevel’s Illuminated fermentation, combined with our deep expertise in sugar manufacturing, defines a new era in biomanufacturing. We look forward to playing a pioneering role in the future of food ingredients and nutraceuticals in a world of limited resources.”
