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CMR FAC | BioManufacturing and the Future of Ag · Closing Market Report

• 0:00
  Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is a special edition of the closing market report presentations from the 2025 Farm Biomanufacturing and the Future of Ag. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. During the conference Vijay Singh and Ishmael Neves discussed the future of precision fermentation in Illinois focusing particularly on the role of IFAB or the Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing Tech Hub. Vijay Singh from the University of Illinois started the conversation.
• 0:35
  Vijay Singh: Thanks Todd, thanks for the invite. So I am a faculty member at University of Illinois, I'm a professor of food and bioprocess engineering, also the executive director of Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab, it's a translational research facility on our campus to bring bio processing technologies closer to commercialization. Okay and what I'm going to talk about today is a little bit about IBRL, what role IBRL is playing in trying to promote the bio bioprocessing here in our state as well as the IFAP. So economic activity as it relates to advancement in biosciences is growing in U. S.
• 1:21
  And worldwide and there are many reasons why that is happening. The biggest one is that sustainability has become a mega trend. The second one is innovation. We have made huge advances in metabolic engineering synthetic biology that we can engineer a microorganism and make it produce a very specific metabolite at very high rates titers and yields that by itself or in combination with chemical catalysis can replace lot of petrochemical products. And then there's a very supportive regulatory framework that is also driving this industry.
• 2:14
  Okay, it's estimated that we can produce about 30% of chemicals by 2040 by using biomanufacturing. This is a $6,000,000,000,000 industry worldwide. Okay? 30% of these chemicals can be produced by biomanufacturing. This industry is expected to reach about $200,000,000,000, these are some of the estimates from few billion dollars to $200,000,000,000 in next fifteen years.
• 2:53
  Also it is expected to create close to about a million additional jobs, high-tech jobs and an opportunity to bring manufacturing back into US and here in our state. Now Illinois is where we want to do all this and the reason for that is obviously we are number one in soy, number two in corn, we have all the innovation that is happening on our campuses here in our state, University of Illinois is playing a great role. There's already an amazing ecosystem of biomanufacturing in our state and between Champaign and Decatur we have all the major five elements that are needed in order to have this booming bioprocessing industry. Obviously feedstocks, cheap energy prices, plenty of water, great intermodal transportation system and access to markets. Okay so that lab to line within that radius exist here in our state.
• 4:12
  Now a very big part of this biomanufacturing is precision fermentation and precision fermentation or fermentation is nothing new, we have been doing it for thousands of years that's how we make yogurt, cheese, wine, beer, all those things. Okay, is we change the functionality of the food product by doing anaerobic fermentation with different microbes. What has happened is very recently is that this precision fermentation is all driven by precision biology and cost of doing that precision biology has come down to a price point where using this technology and producing what we used to get from petrochemicals is now possible. And that is what's driving the growth in this industry. Now we have excellent capabilities at University of Illinois, lot of universities have this capability, you can do this fermentation at one liter scale.
• 5:18
  We have excellent capabilities to do this large scale fermentation that's what ADM and premiums do. Okay. What we are missing is this pilot scale and demonstration capability and this is where state and federal government is putting a lot of resources to create this capability and once we have all this then we have an ability to have a booming bioprocessing industry here in our state. So this is what we are trying to do is add more demonstration scale capability and my you know co panelist is going to talk about that, that's happening at premium, it's happening at ADM. Obviously we have excellent capability at IBRL which is integrated bioprocessing research Lab.
• 6:10
  So this is IBRL, that's the photo of the building there and what we are doing at IBRL is bridging this gap between what happens at an academic institution and what private industry wants in terms of bringing a technology or improving the technology readiness level in order to get to commercialization. Okay? There was always this gap because you know faculty members get a lot of funding from federal agencies, they develop a technology, they run out of the money, they end up publishing the paper in a peer reviewed journal hoping that industry is going to pick it up and run with it and commercialize it but that doesn't happen and the reason is this valley of death and this is what IBRL is trying to fill that bridge that gap. It's a 40,000 square feet pilot plant space, we have been in existence for past seven years and we have done over 1,500 industrial projects in last seven years with over 150 companies that are coming from all over the world to Midwest to scale up their technologies at IBRL. So we get a lot of companies from Bay Area, we get it from the East Coast, Europe, Asia, all these companies are coming in at IBRL scaling up their technologies, de risking their technologies and trying to get closer to commercialization.
• 7:42
  But what happened in past few years that many of these companies were doing all their development work in IBRL but when they were ready to go to a demonstration scale there was nothing available. So they were going to Belgium, they were going to Europe to do the demonstration scale. What we want these companies to do is not only come to IBRL but then do their demonstration and commercial scale in our state. And that is what is driving the IFAP vision. Okay.
• 8:18
  So we have excellent capabilities to scale up technology from 20 liters all the way up to 1,200 working volume liters and paired up with an excellent downstream processing to recover that product. And we can recover it in several kilograms or liters of product at IBRL. But what we were missing is that demonstration scale and that's why you know Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration gave us what we call the technology hub designation. What that means is, you know, that started at Biden administration but continues with Trump administration is they try to identify what are some regional areas in The United States that are very important for our national security and economic competitiveness. And in these regions we are going to put in where they already have assets, the talent, and the capacity to be globally competitive.
• 9:24
  We are going to further invest in these regions and create a capability where US can have a very very competitive position in that particular technology or manufacturing. And we were given that technology hub for the Champaign, Piatt and Bacon County of precision fermentation. That means this region has all the ability to create a booming bio manufacturing industry around precision fermentation. So we have 30 plus some partners that are involved in entrepreneurship, workforce development, technology, evaluation, demonstration scale and then eventually getting to commercial scale. And this is the area that we are trying to develop through that IFAB and trying to develop that technology.
• 10:17
  So obviously IBRL is going to expand, we are so busy that we are starting to put companies on a wait list. So we have tremendous support from the federal government, we have tremendous support from the state government in order to expand the footprint for IBRL as well as create these demonstration capabilities at ADM and PREMIENT and then we have this entire pipeline to bring technologies closer to commercialization. If you need more information about iFAB, here are the people that are running the iFAB, Beth Connerty at University of Illinois, Carly McCrory from Champaign Economic Development, and Nicole Bateman at Macon County Economic Development. With that, I'm gonna hand it to my
• 11:08
  Todd Gleason: To your colleague, Ismael. Thank you very much. He will take over and Brittany if you could change things over for me I would appreciate that. Ifab, if you listen to me on the air during the closing market report, and I have to ask this question because I don't remember just exactly how long. These were presented two years ago this coming spring.
• 11:30
  Vijay Singh: Right? The tech hub designation?
• 11:32
  Todd Gleason: Yeah. Tech hub. Yeah. Two and about every about once every quarter during the closing market report, you'll hear me interview somebody about IFAB because something's happening with it. Not because they asked me to come over, that's not the way my job works, it's because something is happening on campus with iFAB.
• 11:53
  This is the kind of work I think that is really important. It requires the university government funding a push from taxpayers to make happen. But on the other end, it requires folks like Ismail and company at Premiant and iProof to make well, the demonstration side, you know, Premiant, I'm sure you're all aware of, of course, does a great job and they're a big company. Right? But they're helping out in this smaller version, the demonstration side.
• 12:29
  Ishmael Neves is here to continue that story. Ishmael? You're listening to the Biomanufacturing and Future of Ag presentation made during the twenty twenty five Farm Assets Conference held in Bloomington at the Agra Center in the month of December. You just heard from Vijay Singh. He is the Executive Director of the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab or IBRL on the University of Illinois campus.
• 12:55
  Up next is Ismail Nevs, the General Manager of PREMIENT and I PROF in Decatur, Illinois.
• 13:03
  Ismail Nieves: Thank you for that introduction. As Todd mentioned my name is Ismail Nieves, I'm the general manager for I Proof by Prement and I'll be talking a little bit an overview here about Prement itself and I Proof as well. First of all, Premium is a relatively new in name but we've been around for a long time in terms of our facilities. We have three mills and we make three wet mills, six manufacturing facilities in total including three wet mills and three seedlings plants. And we make a variety of different products with the main raw ingredient you know using corn, right.
• 13:43
  So all the way from a seedlings and commodities, industrial starches and sweeteners, these are all products that we make and we have about more than 1,800 employees worldwide. So our facilities span from The US and also in Brazil. We have a seedlings plant there and we have some offices abroad as well in Europe. So you know as I mentioned you know relatively big company right? So and we make all these products and we work with the communities as well and we're part of these IFAP consortium and we are looking to continue growing into the bio economy right?
• 14:26
  So, Premium is is, very cognizant and I'm a firm believer, I personally am a firm believer as well, that the bioeconomy is basically where many things are heading into the future. So it's gonna be a big space into the future that Premium wants to be a leader on. So continuing to grow in there is part of our strategy so we want to become and continue to grow as a leader in that space. So some of the things that we do obviously so we support the bio economy by grounding the corn up and making all of these products as I mentioned some of these commodities, some of these sweeteners and acidulants that are used to make other products. And some of these sweeteners can also be used into a fermentation processes to make additional products as well.
• 15:23
  So here is where iProof comes into mind. So iProof stands for the Illinois Pilot Research and Operations Optimization Facility. So it's a little bit of a mouthful so hence the acronym there. But the intention there as part of the IFAP Tech Hub is to provide a facility that is filling the gap when you go from innovation all the way towards commercialization. So Vijay put it before me right as he was talking there is a lot of innovation happening in The U.
• 15:56
  S. And we are The U. S. Is the leader in that there's no question about that there's a lot of innovation and a lot of things that are happening at the university level that are very exciting, right, on how to do things and how to create new products in new ways that before were not possible but now with the advent of AI and synthetic biology are becoming now available and being able to do so. So these new companies are coming up online all the time and they need a way to scale their processes, right?
• 16:28
  However that infrastructure in the journey towards commercialization for scaling up their bioprocesses is very very limited. And that's where IBRL comes in and that's where the IFAT Tech comes in because through the IFAT Tech Hub we received some funding from the EDA which is the Economic Development Agency of the Department of Commerce to build this facility, to rehabilitate this facility that we had idle there in the Decatur campus at the premium facility in order to provide a way for people to come and graduate basically from IBRL, come to us in their journey towards commercialization to help them continue in that scale up process, in that scaling, right, that needs to take place as they go towards commercialization. What had happened in the past was that as they get through IVRL, there were not enough facilities or not enough infrastructure to allow for that next step in the scale of processes. And a lot of these companies either went abroad or they basically had nowhere to go and they went away. And the reason for that was because nobody is willing to take on that risk of going from that smaller scale and invest probably hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new facility to make this product without going through the proper scale up process to de risk the technology.
• 17:53
  So with this facility we are helping on that de risking and that scaling of the process of the technology so
• 18:01
  Vijay Singh: that then
• 18:01
  Ismail Nieves: it can go towards commercialization. And as PREMIENT what we're looking to do and the benefit for PREMIENT in all of this is that we want to keep this industries in house basically in the state right. So we want to through the IFAD Tech Hub we want to work collaboratively with all of the consortium members to see if we can bring some of these you know facilities future facilities and manufacturing employment jobs and everything, keep them in the state. So we're working on workforce development aspects that go along with those and we're working on many different areas to have all of the infrastructure necessary to keep those jobs and make Illinois and that regional area the biomanufacturing hub in The U. S.
• 18:51
  Okay. Thank you.
• 18:54
  Todd Gleason: Thank you very much. Give these two a nice round of applause. Do you have questions for them? I think it's really interesting. Of course, Premion is the successor of A.
• 19:06
  E. Staley. A. E. Staley, if you the background of AE Staley, he wanted to stop importing soybean oil from where?
• 19:19
  Manchuria, China. Right? And so he asked congress to put a tariff on soybean oil. Because when you want to develop a in house way to do production, sometimes you have to protect protect that. We did the same thing in a different way with ethanol by creating the RFS, not a tariff, but a different way.
• 19:44
  And so in this case, the US government along with university, iFAB, money coming out of the taxpayers is trying to develop a bio products area that would run from Decatur to Champaign and have brand new facilities along that whole place, along that whole interstate where people would have jobs creating new bio products from corn in this case. And that's kind of the point. That's kind of the point of that one. But it takes a lot of research and it takes, in this case, US government, university, and a private entity like or a a a staley successor to do that. Again, other questions that you might have about this?
• 20:33
  I do have one question for you, why? Why would it? Why would Premium want to be involved? What what what's in it for you? Yeah,
• 20:45
  Ismail Nieves: we do believe that biomanufacturing is the future. So the potential is there to produce all of these chemicals and I think Vijay had a few slides in there about the the the value, right, the potential market that is out there, including the projection that we believe on the conservative side about $200,000,000,000 right, in the next fifteen years. And that's one of the lower estimates, right, because some of those go above, you know, a trillion dollars. So we believe that this is a growing space. This has been around for a very long time, but now with the convergence of AI, synthetic biology, and the willingness to ensure the biomanufacturing stays home, it stays here in The U.
• 21:29
  S. All of these aspects are combining, are coming together at the right time to make this a great opportunity for PreMin to become a leader and to continue growing in this space. So I think for Premium that view that that we have is what is driving is what is driving where we're going and why we wanna be in this space.
• 21:50
  Todd Gleason: Give these guys a nice round of applause again. We appreciate them taking some time with it. If the policy panel could come on You've been listening to the Biomanufacturing and Future of Ag presentation made during the twenty twenty five Farm Assets Conference held in Bloomington at the Agra Center in the month of December. Our panelists, whom you just heard, included Ishmael Nieves, General Manager of PREMIENT and I PROOF out of Decatur, IL and Vijay Singh, who is the Executive Director of the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab on the Urbana Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. This is the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media.
• 22:30
  It is public radio for the farming world where you can find this and most of the other farm assets conference presentations right now online again at willag.org on the website or you can search them out in the closing market report podcast just look for the closing market report in your favorite podcast application I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Doctor. JACKSON: