Vikas Rishi

Director, Tojo Vikas Biotech

India is rapidly establishing itself as a leading bioeconomy, with a burgeoning landscape of biotech startups, making biotechnology the sunrise sector of the country. A significant portion of these biotech innovations are centered around life sciences, including vaccines, targeted drug delivery systems, and gene-based therapies for conditions such as COVID-19, cancer, and dementia. Additionally, industrial biotechnology is focused on creating industrial enzymes for home and personal care products, as well as bioethanol, while the application of prebiotics and probiotics continues to grow. New technological advancements, particularly in synthetic biology, are being explored for agricultural and animal products, artificial meats, and proteins. To support the next generation of biotech products, large-scale fermentation will be crucial.

Tojo Vikas Biotech, a biotech firm positively aligns with this philosophy. It echoes Andrew Craig’s book titled ‘Our Future is Biotech’. It believes that a culmination of the availability of capacity, the introduction of steady-state operations, newer, quicker, and cheaper analytical and bioengineering capabilities, and focus on environmental factors, all point towards a higher impact of biotech in our daily lives and the continued interest from the industry in biotech products.

With nearly a decade of experience, Tojo Vikas Biotech is committed to developing and manufacturing natural ingredients through biotechnological processes. However, deep-tech companies often face significant hurdles, including high upfront capital investments for precision equipment and lengthy development timelines. What sets Tojo Vikas Biotech apart is its platform-agnostic approach, prioritizing the production of natural ingredients that meet customer needs through a blend of biotransformation, enzyme technology, and fermentation.

To navigate these challenges effectively, the firm has tapped into incubation centers and government-managed laboratories, which has allowed access to state-of-the-art lab-scale processes and analytical tools while keeping capital expenses in check. Based in the Bangalore area, particularly at the Bangalore Bioinnovation Center, Tojo Vikas Biotech benefits from being part of a vibrant startup and biotech ecosystem. For its scale-up and early production efforts, the firm has leveraged existing excess capacities, fine-tuning production sites to align with the specific requirements of its products and intermediate processes.

Tojo Vikas Biotech employs a range of technologies, as well as combinations of these technologies, to produce natural and sustainable ingredients for the fragrance and flavor (F&F) industry. The company remains platform and micro-organism agnostic, typically utilizing enzymatic conversions, whole-cell biotransformations, or a combination of these methods to convert various input materials into finished products that meet specifications through fermentation and bioprocesses. Additionally, the firm also employs custom downstream separation processes specific to these bioprocesses. Early efforts include in-silico modeling, studies on enzyme effectiveness, and bioprocess optimization. The resulting products are natural, as they avoid catalytic or synthetic chemistry. To make it easy for customers, these products are typically drop-in equivalents, requiring minimal effort to switch from existing options.

The firm has patented enzymatic platform technology for converting key flavor and fragrance lactones. Its patent, IN 316764, for "A Process for Bio-Transformation and Production of δ-Lactones", is currently in its seventh year. The company has developed multiple partnerships for future products, which bolsters customer confidence in its R&D capabilities. For example, the company regularly converts C-10 massoia lactone into δ-lactones for a range of clients. By using a biotechnology approach for the precursor in its conversion processes, the firm delivers completely natural and sustainable δ-lactones that are unaffected by current biodiversity and sourcing challenges.

Its Uniqueness

Tojo Vikas Biotech is a prominent biotech firm known for its contributions to the industry. It publishes research in peer-reviewed journals and presents findings at conferences, focusing on bioprocess-based ingredients and high-efficiency separation technologies, along with the technologies that have worked (or not worked) in the process.

As a company, Tojo Vikas Biotech can harness significant gaps in the market, or direct requests from its customers into tangible products using a combination of technologies. Its leadership team has several decades of experience in the flavor and fragrance space. This, combined with collective technological expertise, has created an effective team able to meet market needs in time with cost-effective yet sustainable solutions. There is no other example of an Indian company that has developed, upscaled, manufactured, and sold biotech F&F ingredients to the Global industry. This is what sets it apart.

Bioprocess-based solutions can achieve effectiveness and acceptance only if they provide a cost advantage and sustainable outcomes for customers. Natural products that do not meet cost requirements are unlikely to succeed for Tojo Vikas Biotech and its clients. The specificity of bioprocesses and the use of alternative or locally sourced raw materials offer significant advantages in terms of cost and sustainability, particularly for products facing challenges associated with biodiversity, climate change, and ethical sourcing. Scalability relies on continuous experimentation and optimization. Initial lab-scale experiments may yield modest results, but persistent efforts can enhance efficiency. A combination of theoretical modeling and experimental validation is essential for resolving process-related issues. Thus, establishing a well-equipped 'wet lab' with various sizes of bioprocess equipment is critical for successful process scaling.

Prioritizing Sustainability through Environmental Responsibility across Manufacturing

Bioprocess-based methods offer enhanced safety due to their operation at milder temperatures, typically between 25 and 35 degrees Celsius, and at ambient pressure. The effluent produced is easily treatable, ensuring compliance with Pollution Control Board discharge norms through efficient treatment plants. The company has integrated a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) strategy into its current and future designs to promote water recycling and reuse. The next phase of the company's growth strategy focuses on developing sustainable products by incorporating green chemistry principles. This includes maintaining solvent-free processes, establishing circular systems, and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions, while integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values into its operations.

Navigating the regulatory landscape for natural chemicals across various markets is challenging. The company adheres to established guidelines for naturalness, such as the EU's EC 1334/2008 and the U.S.'s 21 CFR 101.22(a)(3), and must understand other regulations, including NOP (U.S.), COR (Canada), (EC) No. 889/2008 (EU), and LPO (Mexico). Internal teams remain informed through customer engagement, continuing education, conferences, and third-party consultations. Registration and declarations may be required, as seen with EU firms needing to register under REACH for quality assurance of ingredient information. Tojo Vikas is dedicated to complying with all relevant regulations regarding naturalness and origin while providing necessary information for compliance.

Additionally, Tojo Vikas Biotech is largely driven by innovation and technology. It identifies with a disruption mindset and invests not only in improvement R&D but intellectual property development. This considerably changed the natural aroma precursors and ingredients portfolio. From primarily being a mint-based company between 2010-2015, it was soon able to provide cost-effective yet sustainable ingredients such as sclareolide, (Z)-3-hexenol (non-mint), δ-decalactone among others, to its customers by the use of its R&D output.

Deep tech research relies on collaboration at every stage, emphasizing a multifaceted collaborative approach. Recently, the firm partnered with the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology to develop novel enzymatic pathways for the (Z)-3-hexenol project. Additionally, it has explored collaborative opportunities with IIT Delhi and IIT Roorkee. The firm has received a grant from SIBRI, a BIRAC DBT agency, for its lactone project. It has also collaborated with companies that specialize in membrane separation and possess in situ development capabilities for enzyme screening. Moreover, it works closely with equipment providers and their teams to test various processes to meet its needs.

Evolution and Future Plans

The fragrance and flavor (F&F) industry is experiencing significant changes driven by technological advancements. Tojo Vikas Biotech through its associates, leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for enzyme synthesis, chemical process modeling, and techniques like the ‘artificial nose’. Gene editing technologies are also accelerating development timelines, helping the company create innovative flavors and fragrances tailored to human preferences. All technologies developed by Tojo Vikas biotech are then licensed to the mother Company Tojo Vikas International Pvt. Ltd. (TVIPL). This is a multi location manufacturing company with 100 percent exports of natural flavour and fragrance ingredients, and serving Global majors in this segment. The company has strategic relationships and alliances for supply contracts for 2-5 years for its biotech products.

As a biotech leader, Tojo Vikas Biotech prioritizes employee experience, believing it directly impacts customer satisfaction. Hence, instead of Customer Experience Officer, the company has appointed an Employee Experience Officer, fostering a cohesive team across four locations. Looking forward, the firm is committed to sustainability and is establishing a new Center of Excellence in Mumbai, which will focus on a hybrid approach combining enzymatic and bio based conversions and chemical synthesis, known as Soft Chemistry. This is a First in the industry and defines the Company’s ability to respond quickly to the needs of an industry desirous of lower carbon foot prints.

Furthermore, it has acquired a nearly 8.5 acre plot from MIDC for a fully integrated plant that will support fermentation and downstream processing, and Soft Chemistry. The mother Company TVIPL is also exploring joint ventures and acquisitions globally, to add skill sets and use AI for accelerating the velocity of developments.