28. Nov 2016
Bio-on to invest €15 mio in building a new plant
Bio-on has announced plans to start construction on a new 1000 ton/yr plant for the production of its propritary PHA bioplastics. Bio-on will invest € 15 million to build the plant, which will be completed in 2017.
The news is part of a new 2017-2020 industrial plan, which Marco Astorri, Chairman and CEO of Bio-on S.p.A., outlined to the financial community and the press last week. To date, Bio-on has operated via the production licensing model it developed since its inception in 2007. Now, licensing and production will form the two main business lines on which Bio-on's under the new industrial plan. The decision to move into production is the next step in the company’s strategy to approach the market, and motivated by the “extraordinary and extreme flexibility of application of PHAs bioplastics and by the rapid development of the market”, said the company.
Thanks to the over 50 patents registered in the last 9 years, Bio-on is now the leader in eco-sustainable chemical technologies and in the industrial development of PHA production. PHAs are bioplastics that can replace a number of traditional polymers currently made with petrochemical processes using hydrocarbons. The PHAs developed by Bio-on guarantee the same thermo-mechanical properties - with the advantage of being fully biodegradable once used.
The PHAs bioplastics developed by Bio-on are made from renewable plant sources (e.g. sugar beet and sugar cane production waste) with no competition with food supply chains. They are completely eco-sustainable and 100% naturally biodegradable. New research by Bio-on and a range of new patents filed by the company have shown that, due to their biocompatibility, these biopolymers can also be used successfully in medicine or to make cosmetics products. Bio-on now controls the entire technological chain for the production and use of various grades of PHAs bioplastic.
Bio-on expects to enter the market in 2018 with a range of bioplastic products for use in, among others, cosmetics. One application is that of microbeads from bioplastic, designed to replace polluting microplastics currently contained in cosmetics and already prohibited by law in many countries.
Production will also extend to products for theranostics (which uses bioplastic micro-capsules for diagnostic purposes or to give antitumor therapies) and bio-recovery or bio-remediation (which uses bioplastic to deal with hydrocarbon leaks into the sea or on land).
The plan, according to Mr. Astorri, forecasts turnover of €140 million in 2020 and EBITDA of €85 million, with cash generation of over €60 million.
Balanced and consistent turnover growth is envisaged between the new production division and the licensing arm of the business, further boosting the latter in the future.
The planned turnover for 2017 and 2018 from licensing is substantially covered by orders currently being formalised or negotiated for approximately 68 million Euro. In addition, the "sales funnel" currently includes a number of opportunities that amount overall to approximately 80 million Euro.
Consequently, Bio-on will apply a licensing policy which will have greater focus on production sectors and segments, specific geographical areas and price bands. Production, on the other hand, will focus solely on special bioplastics with high technological content and high margins.
"We are proud to contribute to such an important sector for human health," says Bio-on S.p.A. Chairman Marco Astorri, "We will continue to do so by extending our direct presence even more in the cosmetics, biomedical and nanomedical sectors."
