Press Release

IRB wins the 2011 Italian Business Awards for the Environment for the category best process and technology.

IRB, Istituto di Ricerche Biotecnologiche is an Italian green biotech company which has developed and optimized the exclusive biotech platform HTN^TM (High Tech Nature), based on non GMO plant cell cultures. Through this process it is possible to manufacture, in strictly controlled conditions, high value plant active substances for cosmetic, nutritional and animal deed applications.

The Italian Business Awards for the Environment is the most prestigious recognition to private and public Italian companies who have distinguished themselves in sustainable development, environmental respect and social responsibility. The winners will also compete for the European Business Awards for the Environment which was established by the European Commission Environment Directorate-General in 1987 with the aim to recognise and reward European companies that set an example by successfully bringing together innovation, economic viability and environmental concerns.

Endorsed by FAO since 1994, it is an alternative process to traditional agricultural and extraction practices to produce natural substances and metabolites for food use with a superior level of standardization together with a higher eco-sustainability and the total respect of biodiversity. If compared with traditional agricultural methods, HTN^TM technology allows for the reduction of water consumption (more than 1000 times less) and soil occupancy (400 times inferior) that becomes therefore available to cultivation of cereals for food use.

This eco-sustainable landscape is completed by the total abolition of the use of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers and by the drastic reduction of solvent use.

In fact HTN^TM technology does not require any massive cultivation or harvesting of plant material, even slow-growing or endangered species and guarantees therefore the total preservation of ecological balance and of biodiversity. In some cases it represents the only available alternative source, with no quantitative limits, for the production of those active substances which are rare in nature or difficult to synthetize.

Together with the eco-sustainability, the benefits for end-users are significant: any risk of the presence of environmental pollutants, such as heavy metals and aflatoxins, is totally abolished by the HTN^TM technology since the cell growth occurs in sterile and isolated bioreactors. Furthermore composition and efficacy standardization of the finished product are guaranteed, these latter being indispensable features to ensure reproducible biological efficacy.

“We are particularly proud of this award – Elena Sgaravatti, IRB general manager, declares – since it rewards the truly single-minded and masterly work of a team of excellence. Another highly valuable result recently achieved by the team is the authorization obtained by IRB, first and unique in Europe, for the use of two biotech plant extracts as food supplement ingredients. For IRB the belief in eco-sustainability is not just a trendy word, but it’s the constant guidance deeply shared by the team -small in numbers but big in aspirations -and the consciousness of the advantages that this technology can offer to mankind and the environment.

IRB is finalist for the Best New Product at the European Outsourcing Awards 2011 associated with CPhI that will be held in Frankfurt at the end of October.

It is the first and only biotech botanical extract, obtained from Echinacea angustifolia cell cultures, which achieved the European authorization as food supplement ingredient – substantial equivalence under novel food regulation.

Thanks to its unique biotech origin, it is able to ensure a superior level of safety, standardization and availability together with a dramatically reduced environmental impact with cost effective and market compatible price.These outstanding quality standards, with significant health benefits to end users, were also acknowledged in the recent past by the Nutraceutical Business and Technology Awards (Vitafoods, May 2011) as the Most Improved Product Safety and Quality.

“Being finalist as the Best New Product at CPhI makes us truly proud especially – said Elena Sgaravatti, General Manager of IRB – and confirms that the advantages associated with the HTN^TM technology, both for the industry and the consumers, are highly fitting with the nutritional and pharmaceutical needs for new active ingredients”.

• the absence of pesticides, heavy metals, aphlatoxins and other environmental pollutants.
• the defined, standardized and reproducible composition profile.
• the unlimited availability.
• the huge saving of natural resources such as water and land are in fact the main features of all the products obtained by IRB technology.

IRB is an ISO 9001:2008 certified Italian biotech company specialized in the research, development and manufacture of innovative active ingredients of plant origin for cosmetic, pharmaceutical and nutritional areas.

Besides traditional extraction expertise, IRB has optimized an industrial method for in vitro cultures of plant cells in highly controlled conditions, called HTN^TM (High Tech Nature),and developed a number of truly innovative products safeguarding the biodiversity still guaranteeing the best standardization profile and safety available on the market.