Supporting the transition to biobased chemicals panel session

About this presentation

Organised by BioVale and hosted by Green Rose Chemistry this session brings together leading bioeconomy organisations and entrepreneurs to discuss the opportunities and challenges of bringing new biobased chemical products and services to the market. The session will cover facilities and capabilities in the UK, the finance and funding landscape, and provide case study examples of start-ups and SMEs who have scaled up, scaled down, and scaled out.

Neil joined the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) in 2017 and manages their scale-up facilities at Heriot-watt university (FlexBio) and the University of Strathclyde (RapidBio).  Working closely with the wider innovation centre to help academics, start-ups and SMEs scale their bioprocesses from lab-scale to semi-pilot scale (up to 30L) to demonstrate commercialisation potential.  A technically challenging step that requires a team of expert scientists and engineers to complement a suite of upstream and downstream processing equipment.

Before joining IBioIC, Neil worked as technical lead for Scottish biodiagnostics firm Quotient, bringing a blood transfusion protein microarray diagnostic test from concept to large-scale biomanufacturing.  Neil holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham developing diagnostic tools in the field of food allergy and immunology.  He originates from Kent where he achieved his undergraduate, which also involved a yearlong placement working for the Bioprocess development group (BDG) at the former Pfizer site in Sandwich.