Hyderabad: Precision fermentation company PreferCo on Wednesday said it has appointed Shakthi M Nagappan as chairman and managing director as the company works on building an integrated biomanufacturing platform in partnership with German process technology company Glatt.Nagappan, former director of life sciences with govt of Telangana and ex-CEO of Telangana Life Sciences Foundation, brings nearly two decades of experience across life sciences, industry and govt.He was closely associated with efforts to position Hyderabad and Telangana as a major Asian life sciences hub, during which the state attracted about $15 billion in investments and became home to more than 2,000 life sciences companies, including nine of the world’s top firms in the sector. He will continue as adviser to Telangana govt on life sciences.PreferCo said it is developing capabilities across strain engineering, high-throughput experimentation, upstream and downstream process development, techno-economic optimisation and fermentation scale-up from its base in Genome Valley in Hyderabad.The company aims to help biotechnology innovators convert engineered biology into commercially viable manufacturing processes while pursuing proprietary opportunities in specialty ingredients, proteins and peptides.Nagappan said India’s vaccine manufacturing success showed its ability to combine science, engineering, manufacturing and scale, and the country could now build a similar position in industrial biotechnology and biomanufacturing.“Our ambition is to work with both emerging innovators and established companies globally to help them discover, develop and scale products from India for the global markets,” he explained.PreferCo co-founder and CEO Akhil Gawar said Nagappan’s leadership would be central as precision fermentation reaches an inflection point.While the global bioeconomy is estimated at $4–5 trillion, precision fermentation is projected to grow from about $4.2 billion in 2024 to $35.9 billion by 2030, with India targeting a $300 billion bioeconomy by 2030, supported by scientific talent, engineering capacity and life-sciences manufacturing experience.The global market for biomanufactured ingredients is expanding rapidly and is poised to reach $200 billion by 2040, with capacity potentially needing to expand 20-fold. Biology could address up to 60% of physical inputs to the global economy, with scale, infrastructure and strain improvements having the potential to cut production costs by up to 90% and generate $2–4 trillion in annual economic impact, as per BCG and McKinsey.
