Supporting start-up activity with INGENIUM, the new Open Innovation program

07/27/2017

Naturex has innovation in its DNA. In March 2016, the Group launched INGENIUM, a new Open Innovation initiative aiming to embrace technological progress by supporting innovative proposals from a variety of sources. Throughout 2016, Naturex collaborated with a number of international partners. These partnerships included, among others, a licensing agreements with the Barry Callebaut group which led to the launch of Cocoactiv’, a cocoa extract highly rich in flavanols, and with Poland-based Adamed, which resulted in the market introduction of Aronox®, an aronia extract targeting cardiovascular health. Other companies like Mazza Innovation, FP Innovation, EPC Natural Products, In-Vitro Plant-tech, and Green2Chem have also joined forces with Naturex to develop sustainable and innovative natural solutions.

The latest step includes the acquisition of certain assets from French company, Dialpha SAS, including patents, trademarks and clinical research on three health ingredients. These ingredients developed from cashew, cinnamon and chicory are specifically designed to support the control of blood glucose levels and healthy weight management. The group intends to study the potential of these ingredients and their effects when used in synergy with other ingredients in Naturex's portfolio.

Specific avenues to explore for Open Innovation in 2017

"The past year has been a very productive year for Open Innovation at Naturex," says Doug Klaiber, responsible for the implementation of the Ingenium Program worldwide. "We are really pleased with the number of quality opportunities that have been presented to us. At the moment, we have dozens of opportunities in the pipeline and we're seeing new opportunities every day. From this point on, it’s a matter of us focusing on the most important ones."

To this end, Naturex has defined four key areas of interest for potential collaboration:

 
of 17
BACK