NOVASEP PROCESS

Their core work

Novasep Process is a French industrial company specializing in process engineering and manufacturing solutions for bio-based chemicals and bioproducts. Their core competence lies in downstream processing — the separation, purification, and recovery steps that convert raw biological outputs into market-ready products at industrial scale. They bring manufacturing know-how and regulatory experience to research consortia, bridging the gap between laboratory-scale discovery and commercially viable production. Their participation in both a BBI demonstration project and an MSCA industrial training network confirms their positioning as an industrial implementation partner for the bioeconomy sector.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first project (BIOFOREVER, 2016-2019) was a large BBI demonstration initiative focused on converting forestry biomass into bio-based products — upstream feedstock and conversion routes, with no recorded process-specific keywords. By the time CODOBIO began in 2019, their focus had shifted sharply downstream: purification, continuous flow manufacturing, control systems, and regulatory readiness. This trajectory suggests they moved from broad bioeconomy demonstration work toward a more defined niche in continuous bioprocessing technology — the industrialization step that academia consistently struggles with.

Novasep Process is moving toward process intensification and continuous manufacturing for bioproducts, with regulatory-ready industrial-scale implementation as their differentiating contribution to future consortia.

How they like to work

They have participated only as a consortium member across both projects, never as coordinator — consistent with an industrial company that contributes execution capacity and manufacturing expertise rather than leading research agendas. Despite only two projects, they accumulated 36 unique partners across 14 countries, which reflects the large multi-partner structures typical of BBI demonstration and MSCA training networks. This tells prospective partners they are comfortable operating within complex consortia and contributing a defined industrial role without needing to drive the project.

With 36 unique consortium partners across 14 countries from just two projects, their network is disproportionately broad relative to their project count — a direct result of the large consortium formats (BBI-IA-DEMO, MSCA-ITN) they joined. Their reach is genuinely pan-European rather than clustered around France or neighboring countries.

What sets them apart

Novasep Process occupies a rare position: a large industrial manufacturer willing to embed itself in research consortia as an implementation partner, rather than waiting for technologies to reach commercial maturity. Their combination of continuous manufacturing know-how, downstream purification expertise, and regulatory experience is exactly what academic-led bioprocessing projects lack at the scale-up stage. For consortium builders in the bioeconomy space, they offer credibility that the technology can actually be manufactured — not just demonstrated in a lab.

Highlights from their portfolio

• BIOFOREVER
  The largest-funded project (EUR 255,452) and a BBI-IA-DEMO grant — one of the most demanding EU funding schemes, reserved for near-commercial demonstration of bio-based production routes from forest biomass.
• CODOBIO
  An MSCA Innovative Training Network, unusual for a private industrial company, indicating Novasep Process actively contributes to training PhD-level researchers in industrial continuous bioprocessing — a strong signal of sector thought leadership.