The conference sessions, running parallel to the 1-2-1 meetings program, underpins the event’s core mission of scaling industrial biomanufacturing in the region.
In this pivotal year for the growth of European biomanufacturing, a carefully curated program of company presentations, guest speakers and panels will deliver actionable insights and solutions to critical industry challenges – sparking transformative 1-2-1 commercial discussions.
08:00
Networking coffee & registration
09:00
Opening Remarks
Paul MacDonald, Co-Founder & MD, Bio Innovations Europe
09:10
Opening address
Europe's Bio Revolution - Right Here, Right Now!
Biomanufacturing is the future, with world regions racing to create products, convert supply chains and establish global positions.
Europe is waking up to the fact that it must accelerate its biomanufacturing innovation and production capabilities to stay relevant and competitive.
Governments are catching up with this new reality, with a hurricane of initiatives and legislations aimed at creating markets for biomanufactured products, harmonising the single market and accelerating regulatory pathways.
EuropaBio will launch its 2026 Statement from its European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology (EFIB) and share the impacts for your company and products.
Dr. Claire Skentelbery, Director General, EuropaBio
09:40
Designed Enzymatic Biomaterials™ (DEB) a versatile technology capable of providing functional performance coupled with advanced renewable carbon
Polysaccharides, sustainable biobased polymers, offer vast potential for innovative design and functionality. While plant-based polysaccharides like cellulose and starch lack purity and precise molecular structure, enzymatic polymerization—including DEB technology—enables the creation of purer, precisely structured polysaccharides and novel types like alpha-1,3-glucans. This bottom-up process allows for unique colloidal properties and diverse industrial uses. Sustainability remains central to product innovation, with companies setting specific goals. DEB technology delivers flexible, high-performance biobased materials for coatings, packaging, agriculture, and fibers, supporting new solutions across industries.
Natnael Behabtu, Vice President Research And Development, IFF
10:00
Turning Chemistry Circular: scaling fatty acids made from local agri-food waste
ChainCraft provides biobased medium‑chain fatty acids as a circular alternative to petrochemical and palm derived products. They are chemical drop-ins with a low carbon footprint and at price parity. Made from agri-food residues through a proprietary fermentation technology, scalable and from local feedstocks. We will share the scaling journey from pilot to full commercial production and how renewable fatty acids enable new circular value chains across many industries such as human and animal nutrition, home care and lubricants. We demonstrate how industrial upcycling of waste streams accelerates the transition to circular chemistry, creates new performance chemistries, and strengthens the European (bio)‑economy.
Marc den Hartog, CEO, ChainCraft
10:10
100% Bio-renewable 1,3-propanediol combines performance and sustainability reducing scope 3 emissions in multiple applications: an overview
100% bio-renewable 1,3-propanediol is a versatile building block and bio-solvent used in many commercial applications today and wide available. The Zemea® product brand finds its way in many cosmetics applications and HI&I (household, industrial &institutional) cleaning applications while Susterra® is mainly used in reactive chemistry to produce resins and polymers for the elastomers market (footwear, artificial leather…), resins for coatings and adhesives and also as glycol/water mixture in heat transfer fluids. This presentation will give an overview in times where petroleum based materials availability is under pressure and companies are looking for lower carbon footprint alternatives.
Patrick Van Waes, Susterra® Global Marketing Director, Primient
10:20
From Strain to Scale: Enabling Successful Biorefinery Scale Up with Early Industrial Expertise and Open Pilot Infrastructure
Crossing the scale up “death valley” remains one of the greatest barriers to commercial success in industrial biomanufacturing. Early industrial process insight allows real world scale up risks and performance to be anticipated before costly decisions are locked in.
This presentation demonstrates how RISE “Strain to Scale” facility along with Technology development expertise are accelerating these efforts to make Biorefinery scale-up possible. RISE internal expertise and wide industry network provides innovation opportunity to put advanced solutions together around core technology to de-risk your scale-up. Further RISE pilot facility (up to 10m3) with strain development & innovation services offers smooth passage to commercialization.
Pranav Kulkarni, Technology Advisor, RISE
10:30
Panel discussion
FILLING THE FUNDING GAP TO FINANCE EUROPE’S NEXT GENERATION BIOREFINERY SCALE-UP
To achieve their scale-up ambitions European companies must bridge a huge funding gap, by unlocking new public funds and attracting far greater private capital. In 2026 the EU will mobilise unprecedented public funding and deliver innovative de-risking instruments along with regulatory clarity to attract more private investment to the sector.
How can scaling companies access these new sources of capital? What technical, contractual, and bankability improvements can the industry deliver to make projects truly “investor-ready”? Will private finance finally step up? And how must public funders, banks, corporate offtakers, and private investors align to deliver the multi-billion transformative capital Europe needs to close its 20x biorefinery capacity gap by 2040.
Hosted by:
Samuele Ambrosetti, Head of Programme and Innovation, Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC)
Featuring:
Ward Heij, Business Development Manager, Colesco Capital Circular & Climate Credit Impact Fund
Rolf Kjærgaard, Special Advisor, Novo Nordisk Foundation
Marco Jansen, Chief Commercial & Public Affairs Officer, Avantium
Greta Zajančauskaitė, Head of Life Sciences Team, Invest Lithuania
11:00
Networking coffee
11:45
Panel discussion
From fossil to bio: Unlocking opportunities for biosolutions in Europe's chemical industry transformation
This panel explores the pivotal role for bio-based chemicals in future-proofing Europe’s chemicals industry under the 2025 European Chemicals Industry Action Plan. How will the newly created Critical Chemicals Alliance, alongside the Bioeconomy Strategy and Circular Economy Act, work to create incentives on both the supply and demand-side to drive market adoption of bio-based alternatives? How best can Europe’s chemical companies partner with bio-solutions developers to build on these incentives and accelerate the scale-up of bio-alternatives, creating a secure, competitive, and sustainable future for Europe’s chemical sector.
Hosted by:
Lars Börger, CEO, nova-Institute
Featuring:
Marco Pellegrini, Bioeconomy Manager, CEFIC
Adam Lindholm, Head of Sales and Business Development, Sekab
Erich Cuaz, Head of Government Affairs and Advocacy, Clariant
Martin Ledwon, Vice President Marketing, Sustainability & Communications, UPM Next Generation Renewables
12:15
5-HMF: One building block, multiple industrial opportunities
5-HMFis a bio-based chemical building block with strong potential to replace fossil-based and toxic molecules in various applications. Today, it is moving from concept to industrial reality, with production scaling up and first customer validations in progress. This presentation will introduce 5-HMF, its key applications, and how it can create value in resins, formulations, and chemical intermediates. It will also highlight current opportunities to engage, test the molecule, and build partnerships toward industrial deployment.
Marilyne Hurtado, Business Developer, Michelin ResiCare
12:25
Self-Driving Bioreactors: Practical AI for Modern Biomanufacturing
Modern biomanufacturing still depends on human operators to monitor and adjust complex fermentations, creating bottlenecks in scale, consistency, and tech transfer. Pow.Bio co‑founder and CTO Ouwei Wang will show how an AI‑driven control platform – combining predictive models, real‑time optimization, and autonomous decision‑making – can move bioprocesses from human‑limited to truly self‑driving. He will also highlight Pow.Bio’s partnership with Bühler as a model for integrating autonomous control with advanced hardware, illustrating a practical path to more reliable, scalable, and economically viable industrial fermentation.
Ouwei Wang, CTO and Co-founder, Pow.Bio
12:35
AI for Living Factories
Biomanufacturing holds tremendous opportunity. Yet promising breakthroughs often fail at commercial scale, driving up costs and delaying the market entry of biomaterials. In the AI era, fast, predictable progress is possible. The key is defining the problems that matter, then tailoring the modeling and data strategies accordingly. We will describe the real-world results we have seen with our partners using an integrated modeling approach to address the complex challenges of strain and process development and scale-up.
Relly Brandman, Moonshot Lead, A-Life – A Google X Moonshot
John Bachman, Science Lead, A-Life – A Google X Moonshot
12:45
Guest keynote address
From the football pitch to circular bioeconomy pioneer: An interview with Mathieu Flamini, Co-Founder and CEO of GFBiochemicals
In this in-depth interview, Mathieu Flamini shares how he balanced a top-flight football career with Arsenal FC and AC Milan while founding a company that has become a European success story in industrial biomanufacturing.
From re:chemistry, the company’s core technological breakthrough, to the creation and growth of GFBiochemicals, we explore the scale-up journey from startup to commercial-scale producer. Mathieu also outlines his vision for future growth and the role of circular bioeconomy solutions in transforming industry.
Mathieu Flamini, Co-Founder & CEO, GFBiochemicals
13:05
Networking lunch
14:30
Panel discussion
Fashion for Good’s Mass Balance Demonstrator: Adopting, Implementing, and Scaling Bio-Attributed Content
Scaling biosynthetic alternatives to fossil-based materials remains a major challenge for the apparel industry. While many common biosynthetic polymers have demonstrated strong technical performance, limited production capacity, high costs, and inconsistent carbon accounting frameworks continue to slow investment and adoption. In this session, Fashion for Good and its industry partners present the Mass Balance Demonstrator, a collaborative consortium bringing together key value chain actors to adopt and implement the mass balance attribution chain-of-custody model. Panelists will explore the practical challenges, opportunities, and industry collaboration required to scale bio-attributed materials and accelerate brand-driven decarbonisation.
Hosted by:
Aidan Collins, Senior Analyst – Materials Innovation, Fashion for Good
Featuring:
Claire Mattelet, Fibers Global Sustainability Program Head, Indorama Ventures
Anders Schorling Overgård, Materials Research Lead, BESTSELLER
Richard Platt, Partner, ERM
Sophie Ridler, Recycled Engagement Manager, Textile Exchange
15:00
Bio-based, fossil priced? Intensification warrants a revival of large-scale fermentation
Many large-scale fermentative processes suffer from fed-batch related process restrictions. As a result, the product cost-levels that microbial strains theoretically can achieve are not reached and many fermentation derived products are not brought to market in impactful volumes. DAB.bio’s FAST technology is an in-situ separation technology which removes process restrictions and enables continuous fermentation for a wide variety of compounds, including enzymes, proteins, chemicals and biofuels. This unlocks operating windows not achievable with classical fed-batch processes, resulting in COG reductions of 20-50% and the opportunity to bring large volume fermentation derived products to market at more competitive cost levels.
Eric van der Meer, CEO, DAB.bio
15:10
Industrialising Photosynthesis to Unlock Microalgae as a Scalable Feedstock for Food and Beyond
Microalgae are among the most productive organisms on Earth, yet their industrial potential has remained largely untapped, constrained by contamination risks in open systems or scalability issues and prohibitive CapEx in conventional closed systems. Arborea’s breakthrough BioSolar™ Leaf technology addresses these challenges: a modular, completely controlled “breathing cultivation” platform that converts waste CO₂ and sunlight into nutrient-dense, consistent microalgae biomass on non-fertile land, with techno-economics that hold at any scale and the versatility to cultivate any of 30,000+ photosynthetic microalgae species — unlocking an endless portfolio of ultra-sustainable compounds, from complete, high-quality proteins to functional carbohydrates and bioactive vitamins and minerals.
Felix Bilodeau-Boisvert, Business Development Executive, Arborea
15:20
Unlocking Biomass: A Catalytic Route to Formic Acid, Methanol and Beyond
As industrial biobased manufacturing scales, the OxFA process introduces a novel catalytic route to convert biomass into C1 building blocks. By combining selective oxidation and catalytic hydrogenation, biomass-derived intermediates are efficiently transformed into formic acid, methanol, or hydrogen. The process decouples feedstock variability from product output, enabling continuous operation with high carbon efficiency and integration into existing chemical infrastructure. This technology-driven approach positions biomass not only as a renewable feedstock but as a scalable platform for producing versatile, defossilized molecules beyond fuels.
Matthias Schmidt, Managing Director, OxFA
15:30
Networking refreshments
16:00
PANEL DISCUSSION
From lab to factory: Building blocks for a successful biomanufacturing scale-up
This panel explores practical approaches to scaling industrial biomanufacturing, from technological development and process optimisation to investment attraction and commercial deployment. Panellists will examine key challenges in moving from innovation to pilot to full-scale production, building resilient supply chains, navigating regulation, developing markets, and accelerating the transition to a low carbon, fossil-free economy.
Hosted by:
Varsha Sethuraman, Senior Research Associate, Lux Research
Featuring:
Mark Simmers, CEO, Celtic Renewables
Hendrik Waegeman, Head of Business Operations, Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant
Geoff Nobes, Director of Business Development, RWDC Industries
Amin Delparish, Process Development Engineer, Process Design Center
16:30
BISC-E Challenge
BISC-E Challenge - Dutch Finals
BISC-E Challenge – Accelerating the Transition to a Bio-based Economy. The Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge Europe (BISC-E) is a Europe-wide student competition to stimulate entrepreneurship and award excellence, seeking to raise awareness and involve students in the transition towards a bio-based economy. And once again this year, the Dutch Finals will be held at Bio Innovations Europe! The top three teams of this year will pitch their ideas live on stage, with the winning team earning themselves a prize of 1000 EUR and a spot at the European finals in October. Don’t miss the chance to hear these exciting pitches and witness the future of sustainable innovation.
Hosted by:
Nathalie Mangelaars, Owner & Trainer, Pitch Academy